


out of this skin

by serconstance



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Coffee Shops, Happy Ending, Law Student Dan Howell, M/M, Meant To Be, Mental Health Issues, POV Phil Lester, References to Depression, Writer Phil Lester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 03:19:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12497520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serconstance/pseuds/serconstance
Summary: Phil Lester breaks up with his boyfriend Charlie and moves to London to start a new life, hoping that this change will allow him to finally get rid of the ghosts he carries on his shoulder. What he didn't expect was for the boy he sat next to on the train to keep popping up into his life – at Starbucks, on the bus, at the movie theatre and, mostly, in his thoughts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Myself One Year Ago](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Myself+One+Year+Ago).



> This story may seem mundane: there are no aliens, no spies, no soulmates and no explosions. I didn't seek to write that kind of fic, even though I take great pleasure in reading them. What I intended was to write a story about a broken person who's in the process of putting themselves back together, and how sometimes it's okay to have someone's help. 
> 
> I poured my heart and soul into this fic, and I cannot believe that after two years it's finally time to post it. 
> 
> Thank you to my incredible betas [Hunter](http://gorgeousdan.tumblr.com) for bettering my fic and my english! You took a rough piece of work and turned it into something to be proud of. Thank you to my other unofficial beta [Zena](http://littlelionsloves.tumblr.com) for the funniest feedback I've ever gotten on my work! It was a lot of fun making up AU's in the Google Docs comments. This fic is yours and mine together, and I could not have asked for better people to share it with. 
> 
> Thank you to the artist [Adrian](http://mochadaniel.tumblr.com), who understood what the fic was about and took inspiration to produce art. This is the highest compliment I could ever receive. (Click [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/BasDQXagAiD/) and [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/BasDJCNg_Ek/) to see the beautiful artwork)
> 
> And finally, thank you to Liz, who's always been the first to read anything I ever wrote. It's only after you've read them that the words start to really exist.

_He asked you whether you thought he belonged to you and you said no. You were confused when he looked sad – he belonged to no one but himself. You didn’t know how to express the feeling deep within your chest, – what you felt when every moment it seemed he was slipping through your fingers. You reached and reached but, like fog, he dissolved in front of you._

_You asked yourself if you were love with him and thought nothing else could hurt this badly. And boy did it hurt. It hurt when you looked into his eyes in the morning and when you felt your ankles brush against each other and when you forgot the coffee on the dinner table because he started kissing you before you could finish it. But it was all a beautiful pain, the pain of a moment that can never be repeated, the pain of brushing against a wound that no longer exists._

His wounds had not yet healed, but were merely concealed under duvets and dark marks on necks - the touch of nails against his back and skin against skin. But they were there, even if not visible. He began to think maybe no one else could get them to heal but himself, which was a more terrifying thought than any other.

So one morning, when he felt his lover slip out of his embrace, instead of waking up and walking after him, he pretended to stay asleep, and he didn’t know why. He didn’t know how to make his head stop spinning with questions he read over and over again, thinking of conversations he was too terrified to have.

He felt caught up in a hurricane, but all around him the silence was deafening. He searched for a sound, something to make him feel like it wasn’t just a dream world, and that he wasn’t going crazy. With his heart twitching in his chest and his lungs taking breaths that never seemed deep enough, he decided to close his eyes again and pray for sleep, pray for a motive, something that would trigger the big epiphany he was looking for.

For the first time in a long time, Phil felt like his wounds were not concealed anymore. Instead they were spread even wider than before, the flesh red and pulsating, the air around them stinging like it never had.

Phil decided, then, that it was time to leave.

_The air no longer seemed to satisfy your lungs, the dark night no longer as inviting as it was before, the memories not enough to cover up the rest. Vibrating with pain and sorrow, you decided to leave behind what once seemed like it could save you. You had no clear path, had nowhere to run – there wasn’t anywhere you could go. The problem was inside your brain. It was inescapable and attempted to hold you back. You decided you would not let it enslave you any longer, the sun shone too brightly and autumn was on its way. "It will not hold me back any longer"._

_You drilled this into your skull, and considered googling "how to brainwash yourself"._

Phil drags his suitcase along through the small aisle of the train until arriving at 25A, finding comfort in having a window seat. He puts his bag into the overhead shelf and sits down on the hard, second-class chair. He scrolls through his phone, shuts down the applications and turns on airplane mode. He sticks in his earphones and clicks on the only playlist he ever listens to. His broken iPod and this playlist seem more like home than any four walls ever have, but admitting to that would be too sad. 

_The songs loop like the mistakes you’ve made. You know you should regret them, but you don’t know how to do things differently. You stumble and you fall, but you want to get back up again. You're tired of having grazed knees and elbows, you're ready to have scars._

The train starts filling up and a brown haired boy a bit younger than Phil sits in the neighbouring seat. Because the space between them is so little, Phil turns to look out the window. He doesn’t know where else to look. 

When the train starts moving, Phil considers how fucked-up his situation actually is. He wishes this move could fix it all, though he knows it won't. It may be a new town and new life, but what lives inside him is inescapable and there's nothing any town or anyone could really do about it. 

The boy next to him is asleep in minutes - Phil can hear the low rumbling coming from the boy's earphones when there's a short pause in between his songs. He wonders what the stranger's listening to, and turns to face the window again before he gets too distracted by the boy's hands.

~

_"Phil, we can wait for you to get better. I can help you get better."_

_But Phil already knew he wasn't coming back, his mind was already wandering and the bags he packed were all he had left of himself._

_"No, I-" he stutters and sighs. "I have to go Charlie. I'm sorry."_

~

Phil wakes up after apparently dozing off, and curses at the sun shining into his eyes. He kind of appreciates the orange light that distorts the clouds into fluffy shapes and turns the sky pink. 

He feels a weight on his left shoulder and turns around to realize the boy is sleeping on him, lips slightly parted and only one earplug still in his ear. His breathing is steady, and Phil attempts to move as little as possible as to not wake him. 

Does the boy know he's sleeping on a stranger's shoulder on a busy train? And why isn’t Phil bothered by it? Why does the sun on the boy's skin steady his breathing?

An announcement comes on over the speakers and the boy stirs next to him. Phil panics and pretends to be asleep against the window. He feels the warmth on his shoulder dissipate as the stranger stirs awake and yawns without a noise. The boy adjusts his hair and leans his head back with eyes closed.

Only then does Phil dare to open his own eyes and look at him. He still can’t make sense of what he is feeling, but he doesn’t care to. Phil’s breathing is steady again and he takes out the earphones he’d fallen asleep with. He smiles weakly over at the stranger, whose eyes are still closed.

Phil drops his phone (of course he does) and their hands brush slightly when the boy picks it up and hands it over to him. 

"Oh, shit" Phil says under his breath, and the boy lets out a chuckled breath. 

Phil finally understands what they mean by chemistry when his finger sets fire to his arm and his arm sets fire to his chest and his chest sets fire to his heart. The “thank you” he mumbles comes out strained, and Phil doesn’t recognize his own voice when he says it.

Once they arrive, Phil loses him at the platform, finds him again inside the station, and loses him after that. It’s really sad to him that they will likely never meet again, even if it makes no sense to feel bad about something so little. Phil can’t tell if he’s sad or angry, and decides to stop blaming coincidences in order to make sense of what he feels. 

As he exits the station doors, the air around him feels thick and warm and moist. Phil can feel the summer rain that has just ended, confirmed by the puddles on the side of the road. He takes a deep breath and hauls his bright blue suitcase towards the line of taxis waiting outside. He can’t stop himself from sneaking a look around him, looking for the boy with soft looking skin and pretty hands. He shouldn't be this upset about not seeing him again, it shouldn't be this hard to push him out of his mind, but the memory of that peaceful silence won't leave him alone. It's like missing something that never can and never will come to be. It's terrifying, but Phil looks around again after loading his trunk into the taxi anyway. 

He fails to find him.

_The boy slept in a peace unknown to you. For a second, the peace was elsewhere, it was a place you didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Unplanned, unprecedented, unreal. All things you usually feared and strived to stay away from, but, for some reason, it was okay. A feeling was swelling in your chest, a pain that was not hidden, a feeling you thought had been forgotten for long now. It bloomed and rotted, sinking back into your skin as it attempted to nourish the toxic ground around your chest._

_You believe there is beauty in the attempt._

~

It doesn't take long for Phil to settle down as he turns the empty flat into something that vaguely resembles home. He assembles cheap Ikea furniture whilst drinking coffee and listening to Rainy Day playlists on Spotify. He ignores the emptiness he feels in the space in between each song, and tries not to get sucked into it as the rain splashes against his windows at night. 

His mother calls him twice a day. Sometimes he doesn't pick up, but mostly he does. She reminds him of the tiny bottles in the kitchen, the ones that rattle when you shake them, with the blue and white pills that Phil has trouble swallowing in the mornings and before he goes to sleep. They annoy him, but do help, and he tries to ignore the positive effects that they have on him. Change, even for the better, seems to be a whole new level of terrifying. 

He enjoys the anonymity the city provides him with, enjoys working from home in his pyjamas, enjoys getting to make his own hours and eating cereal in front of the TV. He enjoys having time to write about things, having time to listen to music and not do anything else.

_You cross your heart and hope to die, whispering, "I'm not lonely, I'm not lonely" into the empty space in front of you. The wind outside whistles in between the townhouses, and you feel as though it's making fun of your weak attempt. You say it again: I'm not lonely, I'm not lonely. The void does not believe you._

~ 

Autumn rolls around: cold and unforgiving, forcing Phil to take out his dark grey, worn out winter coat, thick gloves and a colorful scarf. 

He walks through the streets quietly on the way back home. His day had been stressful – the meeting he had, his next writing job, and even the subway ride home – everything stressed him an unnecessary amount.  
The sun is setting, all yellow and grey and unassuming, and Phil still walks through the quiet streets. He walks until the streetlights turn on, until his feet are sore from walking, until he finally, finally, manages to breathe again. His hands become frozen into fists inside his pockets, his lips are chapped and white,. He continues walking anyway, knowing now that he's completely lost. 

Phil waits and waits for the fear to come – fear of the dark, of being lost, of being alone, – but it never comes. His mind is clear as he walks along the unknown streets, not quite happy, but not sad either. He feels nothing. That, for the moment, suffices.

His boots clack on the ground, his shaky breath the only sound beside some pigeons and distant cars. The wind picks up, freezing his cheeks and his eyelids and he decides then it's time to go home. 

He curses at the contact with the cold wind as he takes off his gloves, and reaches for his phone. He curses again when he realizes it's run out of battery. He looks around, but the entire street is dark, with no signs of any open store or restaurant. He curses again. 

Phil puts the gloves back on and decides to keep walking until he can find a place that can give him information as to where he is. He picks up his pace, really feeling the cold seep into his bones. He thinks about how pale he must look under the streetlights, and asks himself if, were he to try hard enough, he could turn into a ghost. 

A long way down the road he sees a few shops, some brightly lit clubs and restaurants. The sound of voices floods his ears, filling his chest with a feeling he cannot explain, though he knows it's not a pleasant one. 

He walks on, entering the first place with the lights still on this late at night. He later realizes it's a cinema. It seems like a small movie theatre, with only two screens and one cash register. Though the lobby is empty, the cash register is still open and the smell of popcorn flows into his lungs and stomach. Only then does he realize how hungry he is. 

He walks towards the cashier and asks the person with silver hair for his address, explaining the situation to them. They chuckle, and say he's only a couple of blocks away. His mind races trying to fathom what just happened – he'd walked a full circle. 

Phil thanks them with a smile, and considers getting some popcorn, turning towards the stand as a way to procrastinate going out into the cold – the cold of the outside, the cold of his flat, the cold he can't escape and can't grasp. 

Taking a few steps towards the cash register to place his order, he doesn't look up until he's right in front of it, distracted by the many choices of sweets. When he does look up, he is greeted by brown eyes he'd never thought he'd see again, and to say it takes him by surprise is a huge understatement. 

His heart leaps out of his chest and he takes a few steps back, away from the man and towards the door, away from his thoughts and towards the cold. He doesn't remember to put his gloves back on and doesn't even feel the frost forming around his fingertips as he kind of walks, kind of runs home, asking himself why he had to see a ghost instead of becoming one. 

_It sounded silly in your head when you thought you got drunk off stars, but you were sure of it nonetheless, because you compared the feeling to the one you got when you looked into his eyes. You weren’t in love, and you couldn’t be, but you could see yourself starting to pay attention to the backs of his knees, the bruises on his shin, the curve of his neck to his shoulder, and Starbucks orders._

_Destiny wasn’t something you believed in, but that didn’t mean you didn’t fear it._

Phil has to try all of the keys from his keyring, because he can't read the labels he spent hours making with the label maker he’d bought on the internet for this sole purpose. It doesn't help that his hands are shaking and the warmth from the radiator in the hall has fogged up his glasses, but he finally gets in after trying the same key four times in a row, letting out a breath he's been holding since he got out of the cinema. 

He wants aspirin, he doesn't want to take his stupid medicine, he doesn't want to feel like the cold bites at his insides even when it's warm and cozy. He wants to not feel trapped between four walls every time he gets back into this stupid flat with the ugly carpet, he wants to be with his mum. 

Except he doesn't want any of it anymore.

Mostly he just wants out. He wants a good excuse for the way he feels, he wants to know why he's trapped inside his own head, why he treats himself like this. He wants to know why the medicine bottles have labels with his name on them. He wants to stop fearing everything. He wants to be able to breathe in without shaking, and to grab someone's hand when they offer him help. Phil wants out of this skin, can't take feeling the stitches ready to rip apart at any given moment, can't bear the flames that live under his muscles. Can't take the ever-growing gap inside him that's been with him for so long that he doesn't remember what it feels like being whole. 

_You wanted to have a home and not care about the ugly carpet, wanted to take your medicine knowing it would get you better, wanted to wash out the makeup you'd been covering up your wounds with. And it was tragic because your body was the only home you'd ever have and you were at war with it._

_The stitches in your heart were longing to fall apart, but you'd stapled them together a long time ago. You knew it was time to bleed, and you gripped at the edge of your seat at these words because you knew they were true._


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks roll by into the weird lull of February winter, with the trees still completely bare of leaves, nothing to look forward to, and no fond memories close enough in the past for their energy to linger still. Phil barely leaves the house at all, murmuring to himself around his flat just so he can hear the sound of a human voice when the words bounce off the bathroom tiles. When he does go outside, he makes sure to take the long route towards the bus stop, and tries to convince himself that it has nothing to do with the panic that rises inside him every time he thinks about the boy at the cinema. 

So Phil takes the long route, goes to the supermarket that is further away, and avoids the nearby Starbucks altogether, preferring to drink his Nescafés at home instead. And sure, that cold inside him has not thawed, and sure, he stays up late to avoid having to lay in bed with his thoughts, but considering everything, he thinks he's doing pretty well for himself. 

Even when he wakes up late one morning, he still takes the long route to the bus, cursing at himself for clicking the snooze button twice. His hair looks like a mess, his glasses are crooked on his face, and one of his shoes is untied. He all but runs towards the bus, sighing in relief when he sees it turning around the corner, knowing he's going to make it. 

Phil approaches the stop as the long line of people start getting onto the bus, searching his pockets for his Oyster card before stepping on. 

And there, right there in the first seat -Phil cannot believe it - sits the brown-eyed boy from the train and from the cinema, and now from the 73 bus, apparently. 

His breath catches in his throat and he quickly jumps off the bus again to face a line of very confused-looking people, cursing at himself for reacting like this. The line continues to move on, someone takes a long time to pay, and Phil weighs his options. He really needs to take this bus.

He takes out his phone, checking the time, only to find out he’s already late as it is, and this is the only bus he knows will take him there. He runs through the pros and cons many times in his head, and receives a dirty look from the driver as he blocks the bus doors. 

"Are you in or out?" he asks, looking at Phil pointedly. 

The pros are that he is gonna get there not completely late and therefore won’t miss his meeting. He might get a writing job he is actually passionate about, and get paid much more money than he is currently getting. 

The cons are be that he will have to sit for at least half an hour in the same bus as the brown-eyed boy from the train, and he knows - he knows - it's ridiculous, and it shouldn't matter. He doesn't know why he cares so much; he shouldn't care so much. And as much as he tries to bend and break the feeling, it straps itself back around his heart, and Phil can't seem to explain it or get it to go away. 

So he steps onto the bus, swipes his Oyster card and swallows with difficulty when he realizes the only seat available is right behind the brown-haired boy. He almost laughs when he realizes he doesn't even know the boy's name. How can someone who doesn't even have a name freak him out like this? 

But he does freak Phil out; he freaks him out when he glances at him as he takes the seat behind him. Phil even freaks himself out when he notices how closely he pays attention to the back of the boy's neck, and the way his hair contrasts with his skin, and how his shoulders move every time he lets out a sigh – which is a lot. 

_A song started playing and you didn’t know why no one's expression changed around you when it did. Time stopped in its tracks and you realized you were the only one listening to it. The song slipped as if it was coming from the air around you. It was made out of memories and deep, minor piano keys and a boy's sigh in time with the heartbeat you felt against your ribs._

The bus ride seems endless and Phil tries to concentrate on the Fruit Ninja game on his phone, or on the view out the window, or even the knitting the old lady sat next to him is working on, but his mind is always elsewhere.

More specifically, his mind is set on the boy sat in front of him, and Phil doesn't mean to – he really, really doesn't – but he thinks he can smell his aftershave. All his senses are heightened, his mind wandering around grounds that Phil knows are filled with minefields, and he's terrified to the bone of what he is feeling. This is a stranger after all. 

But then he remembers the boy's head resting on his shoulder that afternoon on the train, and how his lips were pink and chapped, his skin soft and beautiful. He remembers looking for him at the station and how disappointed he’d been when they’d lost each other, remembers telling himself to stop relying on coincidences to make sense of what he feels. Now here he finds himself again, thinking too much about the same stranger, feeling his heart tangled in a battle with his brain, and – 

The boy gets up and Phil's heart jumps in his chest when he realizes the boy is leaving, only now noticing that this is his stop as well. His heart swells as he walks off the bus, making sure to head in the opposite direction of the boy. And, sure, it happens to be the wrong direction, but he still makes it just in time. He even sits in the waiting room, sipping on bad coffee, hoping, praying, that his way back may be less torturous. 

_Making sense of the heart is a task all people have failed at._

_The truth tasted bitter on your tongue, much like the coffee you were drinking, and your mind wasn’t focused, your senses still all on edge. You remembered his hands and held back a smile; you were terrified to think of why that smile had come to be in the first place._

_You prided yourself silently in having taken the bus at all._

~

The next morning Phil wakes up feeling strangely refreshed, and proves his mood to himself by not sitting in the shower for once. The meeting the day before had gone much better than he had expected given his nerves, and today's plans are relatively simple compared to the ones yesterday. 

Hell, he even feels like leaving the house today. 

So Phil puts on jeans and a hoodie, and decides he's tired of his Blend 43 Nescafés, walking out of the door before he can stop himself, turning to the direction of the nearest starbucks. He locks it behind him and admires the day outside, which, somehow, seems less grey than the usual. 

He walks ten blocks towards the second nearest Starbucks and sits down on the couch by the window, indulging himself in a warm caramel macchiato and free Wi-Fi. He doesn't got any places he needs to be, and has no deadlines to attend to today; for once the lack of routine doesn't bother him as much as it should. 

He's halfway through his second drink and chocolate chip cookie when someone sits next to him, putting their laptop down on the small round table, nearly spilling Phil's drink when they put down their own cup. 

Phil turns around, getting the hair out of his eyes, his heart beating fast because of how scared he is of this sudden interaction. He kind of reaches for his drink to adjust it on the table whilst turning his head and then–

It's him. Of course it's him! It's the boy from the train, from the cinema, from the bus, and now, from Starbucks - of course, of course, of course. 

And now he's sitting right next to Phil, plugging his laptop charger into the plug socket Phil hadn't even seen behind him, and suddenly the murmuring of the people around him becomes muffled and Phil can't really get out a word. He's completely, one hundred percent frozen onto the too-small sofa, his mind somehow going a million miles a minute and staying completely blank at the same time. 

"Hi, yeah, sorry," the boy says with a tentative smile, and it doesn't escape Phil that this is the first time he's ever heard his voice. "There were no plugs available anywhere else and I really need to finish this paper. It's due tomorrow and I kind of feel like I know you so this isn't too strange, I hope." He finishes, and immediately looks to the Google Docs document open on his screen. 

Phil doesn't say a word and thinks about leaving, but he can't really because he's still thinking about how the words work themselves out of the boy's mouth, and how every vowel sounds like dripping candle wax and his T's sound different to those of anyone else he's ever heard before in his life. 

And then he just stares at the boy, kind of over his shoulder and there's that smell again, that smell from the bus. It's that cologne or perfume or something, and Phil's mind is wandering much further than it probably should right now. And it's ridiculous, because he can barely form a coherent thought, much less make sentences out of the words that hang from the tip of his tongue. It is as though he has forgotten a very basic recipe, like how to make tea, or how to boil ramen noodles. 

And so he does nothing but sit there quietly with the chaos behind his forehead slowly quieting down, afraid of even trying to sip from his drink. He’s afraid of talking or breathing in a strange way, afraid to move because of the way his coat rattles, afraid to even think about why he's so afraid of the situation. 

"You've spelled acquittal wrong," is what he finally goes for, not even thinking about his words until they're already up in the air. He could almost touch them, he thinks, and wishes he could reach out and pull them back into his mouth. Instead, he comments on the paper the boy is writing, sounding mildly like a teacher and just generally like a creep who reads over people's shoulders. 

"Oh, okay. Thanks," he says, smiling politely, and Phil knows this is his cue to leave, to not make it any more dramatic than it needs to be. But he’s Phil, and things don't work like that for him. 

"Also, the H in Habeas corpus needs to be capitalized," he adds a few minutes later, once again not knowing where this is all coming from. Apparently, it's impossible for him to just shut the fuck up already. It's like his conscious decision-maker has been locked inside of his brain, and chaos has finally taken over his words and his emotions. 

"What are you, a teacher?" the boy asks, a light-hearted tone in his voice.

"Nope, just an, uh, English major and a Latin minor?" Phil explains, and then adds, "Sorry," for what he thinks is good measure. 

"That's okay," the boy says, now turning around completely to face Phil properly. 

He furrows his brows at him before extending a hand, introducing himself.

"Dan Howell, law major, cinema cashier and typo enthusiast," he says. Phil has to force himself to pay attention to what his lips are saying, and not how they are moving. "And you are?"

"I, uh, I'm Phil? Phil Lester," he stutters, barely even getting the words out. "I'm a freelance writer, yeah, kind of." 

Dan looks at him for what seems like an entire minute before turning away again. He begins typing even faster than before, and stops after a minute to sip at his drink. Then, he turns around again.

"Nice to meet you, by the way. Phil." He pauses, doesn't look away. "The name suits you."

_It was even scarier now that the infatuation had a name. It wasn’t just brown eyes and hair anymore, it wasn’t chapped lips and tanned skin. And sure, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but you had never been very keen on Shakespeare and to you a name meant something.._

_You labeled everything properly; the files on your computer named, if not alphabetized, the jars in your kitchen properly marked ‘flour’, ‘rice’, and ‘corn starch’. So when the brown eyes became a person you no longer felt like the feeling could be buried, it was very much banging against your tummy, your skin burning with the sensation of it._

_You thought about bus rides and coffee shops and how calm you had felt looking out of the window of that train all those weeks ago, and wondered if a feeling was always unique or if it was possible to feel exactly the same thing twice. Looking out a different window into the street, you sipped on your macchiato that had now gone cold, attempting to steady your breaths. You failed._

~

It's been a week since the Starbucks incident, and Dan's phone number has been sitting in Phil's phone ever since. It burns hot against his upper thigh when he puts it in his pocket – knowing that he has Dan's phone number is the closest he’s been to another person in a long time. And he can't stop thinking about it, thinking about how easily Dan had slipped his phone out of his hand and into his own to type in the number, how easily he had asked Phil to do the same.

Also his name. He couldn't stop saying it, savouring the feeling of it around his tongue, slipping it in between his fingers just to put it back and say it again. Dan, Dan, Dan. 

He decides to go watch a movie and, well, it just so happens that the cinema Dan works at is the closest one to home. And sure, maybe Phil does want to hear his voice again, and maybe Phil does want him to say his name again, but there is no harm in going there either way. So, he does. 

He looks at himself four times in the mirror before leaving his flat, feeling insecure and ridiculous for feeling insecure. Dan probably doesn't even remember his name, and yet here he is, changing shirts for the third time because everything he owns resembles the wardrobe of a twelve year old. 

He arranges his hair time and time again, cursing the hair gods for making his day off a bad-haired one, and spends over fifteen minutes deciding on what pair of shoes he should wear. This is an especially remarkable feat considering he only owns two. 

He finally settles on his light grey jumper with the fox patterns, and on his black shoes, and walks out of the door knowing that if he were to take another look in the mirror he'd change everything again. 

This isn't a date, he hasn't even told Dan he's going, he might not even be there today; but rational thoughts only go with clear-minded people and Phil's mind is as foggy as the mirror in his bathroom after the long showers he takes - the ones where he sits on the bathroom floor feeling the boiling water against his back and only gets out to look at the flesh coloured patterns that form below his neck. 

As hard as nights are, afternoons are so much worse, and Phil has lost count of the panic attacks that ended with him sitting on the stone cold floor of his shower, turning up the temperature until he couldn't see before his eyes, until his vision turned to black, until his tears started falling for something else than the horrible feeling he was trying so hard to escape.

But the medication's been helping, and Phil is able to leave the bed more often than before, and he's okay. He used to fear the thought of never being completely happy again, but he's come to appreciate the mildness of okay, come to appreciate the days when he can eat and get dressed and take a shower. There had been days when all of those things seemed impossible and useless tasks, and now they were just okay. 

So, yes, he settles because okay is better than horrible, and he lives on the expectation of more okay days rather than expecting ultimate happiness. He's come to think such a thing doesn't exist, and the world appears to prove him right most days. 

He walks down the street, somehow eager and nervous at the same time, already taking out his ten pound bill because he gets nervous with cashiers. Phil memorizes what he's going to say as he walks into the cinema, making sure that he has the movie and time correct in his head by checking on the screens above the cash register. 

The same person from the other day is working there again, and they look even more bored than they did before. Flicking their fringe out of their eyes, they bid Phil good afternoon, and ask what movie he'd like to buy a ticket for. 

"Hi, um, just, eh, the 5:30 session please," he murmurs, hoping that it's loud enough for them to hear. They ask him what movie, and he says the name, blushing deeply, not able to believe he's made such an idiot mistake. 

"Don't be too hard on yourself, everyone does this," his mother would say to soothe him, but Phil is shattered glass glued back together, and even the smallest of tremors is able to make him fear for his entirety. This is a concept most people don't seem to get, and Phil has learned to nod his head yes and attempt to push out a smile when people say positive things that could never apply to how he felt. 

Once he has the tickets in hand, he walks towards the popcorn stand. He doesn't know whether he gets more or less nervous when he sees Dan standing behind it. His hair is tucked behind his left ear and his fringe is draped over his face as he counts the person in front of Phil’s change in many coins, and he has a horrible blue and white, striped shirt on, and his name tag on the left on his chest. 

Phil counts the steps he takes towards him – one, two, three, four, five, six – and when he gets there, Dan looks up and smiles. Phil lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. 

"Hey, you. What can I get you today?" he asks, all smiles and twinkles in his eyes, and Phil doesn't know how to blink anymore, or how to breathe out.

"I, um," he manages to get out after a few seconds and a pointed look from Dan. "I want some popcorn and just Coke, I think." 

"Small, medium or large?" Dan asks, already half turning around to reach the popcorn bags.

"Medium, please. Although, the coke is large," Phil answers, proud of the lack of shake in his voice, and the lack of stuttering. He decides to stick to short, key phrases. Phrases built up like a child's words, with as few verbs as possible and close to no adverbs, easy and simple. Phrases, Phil thinks, that would almost make him a fraud for matching the inside of his head so poorly. 

Because if Phil were a style of speech or writing, he'd be page after page of long sentences and commas, full of colons and dashes when all he's looking for is a full stop. His writing would be messy and blurry because he insists on using fountain pens that he buys the ink for separately as a way of attributing at least a little value to words he knows would be worth nothing otherwise. 

His hand would drag over the fresh ink, the lines would become blurry as they are conceived, the paper torn after just a few sentences because Phil could never write to himself like he writes to other people. Making up stories is easier than facing the untold one that unfolds inside you, and he shut the pages of his journal a long time ago.

"I waited for you to text me, you know," Dan says as he finishes filling up Phil's cup with the bubbly liquid that comes out of the fountain. A glint of a smirk plays on his lips and Phil looks around because he doesn't know how to respond. 

The cinema is mostly empty, it being a Tuesday, and Phil thanks whatever greater force there is for having days off in the middle of the week. He puts his hands in his pocket to retrieve yet another fiver, and hands it over to Dan murmuring something like an apology. 

"Here's your change. Also, text me, Phil. For real, you seem nice, and I think we should be friends," he says, with a truthful smile this time. Once again, it baffles Phil how easily the words slips off his tongue. He thinks about how he could never say things like that to anyone in his life, and how much he wishes he could text Dan without having to calm himself down by breathing into a paper bag every time he thinks about it. 

"I think you'll like this movie, by the way," Dan says, brushing his fringe out of his eyes and smiling softly. Phil turns around so Dan can't see him blushing. 

_His eyes were soft and your legs felt like jelly when you walked away. How close could you get to being happy without turning around?_

_You thought the wounds had healed but there were still scabs left and you were picking them off way too early. His eyes were warm, and his skin seemed to be too. But you were still stone cold to the touch and you wrapped yourself tightly in your blanket at night because you knew it was impossible to be happy when torn into several different pieces._

_But that was what it felt like, wasn’t it? It felt like a missing shard of glass from the window, felt like a missing G minor key in your favorite song's harmony, it was like you'd been looking at a painting for so long that it had stopped making sense. Fingers don't touch the soul, and you'd always liked leaving fingerprints. But the sea always sweeps away the sandcastle when it rises, and maybe it was time for you to be swept away too._

~

Phil thinks about what to text for three days. 

At first, he thinks he should go with a joke, but then he seems silly. Then, he thinks of just saying hi and asking him how he is, but then he seems boring. Then he thinks about being honest and telling stuff about himself, but then he seems desperate and ridiculous. He considers adding emojis to all three options. 

Then, on the fourth day, he's sitting at his computer and it's 11pm and he's halfway finished with his coffee. He’s writing the article he's supposed to deliver within a day when his phone buzzes and the screen lights up. He finishes typing the sentence into the open document on the screen, makes sure to save it five times and then looks over at the phone. 

Dan's name is beside that little green box that indicates a message, and Phil's finger glides over the smooth glass surface of his phone before he can stop himself, and then it's too late. His coffee has slipped out of his hand and is already being absorbed by the ugly grey carpet and the smell will last forever. It's too late because now his phone is open with the message right in front of him, a little blue box that messes with him too much for it to feel like a relief, and it's clear that he's opened it and now Dan awaits an answer, and Phil wonders if he can send him one.

**From Dan:**  
_wanna talk? ik its late but._  
also  
i got tired of waiting for you to text me. 

Phil's mind is going five hundred miles an hour, but when he looks around him everything moves slowly and everything is quiet and it becomes overwhelming to him how alone he is. He breathes in and out a couple of times, but every breath is like climbing a mountain and then climbing the mountain again. He begins to type, erases everything he wrote several times, and then settles for something he realizes he hates the moment he clicks send. 

**To Dan:**  
_i'm always up. what do you wanna talk about? also, sorry._

Texting is good, texting is safe. Dan can't see the bright red of his face, can't count how many times he sighed and took deep, shaky breaths. Phil can do texting. Hell, he can even throw an emoji into the mix every now and again. Yes, texting is good, texting is something he could use in his favor to get closer to Dan without making a complete fool of himself like he'd has up to now. 

_You’d never thought you'd get to feel what the movies told you to feel, what your friends first started feeling back in high school, what songwriters describe and poets write about. And it was strange to say you felt like a teenager again when you'd barely ever felt like one in the first place, but you did._

_It was like there were possibilities at the tips of your fingers, like your chest was big and wide and open, like you filtered the world more than you absorbed it. The music played around your ears with every passing hour into the long night, with the brightness of the phone screen on low, the breath you shook out audible. You ignored them, you kept typing._

_You'd always believed it was easier to tell the truth in the dark, so you dimmed the lights and blew out the candles. It was only when you couldn’t see anything but the screen of the phone anymore that you decided to be yourself for once. You knew you'd lose him again in the morning, but it was nice to know that he was still there somewhere for tonight._

It's past 6 AM when Phil sits back at his computer, knowing he can’t sleep if he wants to make his 8 AM deadline. And it feels okay, he feels like he can take it. His fingers feel weird and foreign as they type in the words that slide out like they've been previously written already. They haven't, but they don't sound bad and Phil writes from the bottom of his stomach, from behind his lungs, he writes from his very inside and with every word he writes on the subject he finds he doesn't care about what sounds genuine and true. 

When he sends it off he’s impressed by his own writing for a split second, but it doesn't take long for the worry to start crawling up his arms like ivy. He fears he hasn't done a good job, fears he is too tired to think straight, fears what he might've texted Dan last night when he had the darkness around him to make him feel like he could hide. 

His stomach rumbles before he reaches any decisions, and he realizes it's been weeks since he's felt hunger. His stomach rumbles again and he can't help but feel relieved to have his body functioning properly like that again, can't help but appreciate being hungry after long weeks of stuffing himself with anything without really tasting it. 

He makes himself a bowl of cornflakes and pours sugar on them, then crawls onto the sofa to munch on it while a rerun of Friends plays on the TV. His mind is blank, but it's not as bad a thing as the kind of blank he’d been feeling before. 

This blank is happy, it's satisfied, it's okay but in a good way rather than a neutral one. It's not that he's just accepted being miserable, it's that he actually isn't. 

The realization comes as a shock to him, and he almost worries that acknowledging it will make it go away, but it lingers through almost three episodes of Friends before it's dulled out by the morning grey peaking through the window. 

He makes his way to the kitchen and dumps the bowl onto the ever-growing pile of dishes he needs to wash up. He promises himself he'll do it as soon as he wakes up, which he has done every day for the last week as well. He makes his way to the bedroom, the drapes still shut, and lies under the covers, much more tired than he'd realized before. 

Phil takes his phone from the nightstand, where he'd left it, and a single message from Dan pops onto the screen. 

**From Dan**  
_i had this feeling about you, like in my stomach._

He falls asleep before he can question it much. 

~

_He was not what saved you, he was not the hero, but for the first time you believed there was something worth saving. Your heart beat fast in your chest, and for once you considered the leap, you considered the run. The prospect made your lungs burn, and your head spin, but you could finally envision the finish line._


	3. Chapter 3

There's something about the sound of a buzzing phone on the nightstand that can either bring great annoyance or great satisfaction. Phil mostly associated it with his alarm clock in the morning, or with unwanted phone calls and text messages from the phone company. All of those fell under the category "annoyance."

However, his clock shows that it's past three in the morning as his phone buzzes once again, and that delicious tightness in his chest fills up his lungs, his head twisted in the most wonderful way. Sure, he’s trying to sleep, but mostly he's pretending to while he waits for an answer.

He looks at his phone screen, his stomach in a knot, his heart in a good place as he reads ‘message from Dan’. He swipes, reads, tries to come up with a clever answer. He wants to write, "If my heart were a place, you'd be home", but holds back the temptation.

They've been talking for weeks now, and yet Phil doesn't dare call it a friendship. Deep inside he knows it is. It’s a friendship in the best sense of the word, a friendship that doesn't have to evolve into anything else - although Phil desperately wants it to. 

_Your mother used to say that nothing good could happen after 2AM, but when you swiped right to unlock, you felt yourself unlock from the prison you'd been building for so long. It was weird, but you thought you loved him, you thought you wanted him close, wanted to touch him, wanted him to touch you._

_You felt ridiculous, felt sure that it was one-sided, felt the same old fear you'd always felt. Yet something inside you was blooming. It was developing roots, and you prayed that it wasn’t hope, but it was looking like courage. You had no idea which one was worse._

~

**From Dan:**  
_wanna maybe go out 2 eat smth?_

Yes, it's 3AM and yes, Phil does have a deadline to meet, but he's already got on his shoes and jacket and doesn't even linger on the fact that he's wearing pyjama trousers because he's on the street and on his way. The streets are empty, but his surroundings are warm. 

Down the road the 24-hour corner shop shines bright, surrounded by the darkened streets, and Phil sees a tall figure with hands in his pockets looking around and at his phone and at him. He catches himself smiling and cannot stop for the life of him, but manages to tone it down to a slight grin when he finally arrives, looking at Dan. 

His face is half illuminated by the bright white lights from inside the shop, but the other half - the one Phil feels himself kind of falling in love with - that side shines in the yellow streetlight. Phil blushes and looks down, murmuring hello. Dan touches his shoulder and Phil looks back up. 

Dan is smiling at him and gesturing for them to walk into the falafel shop next door, so they do. They sit in one of the booths by the window. Dan looks beautiful against the worn out red cushioning of the sofa. 

"There aren't many people who would agree to meet for food at three in the morning, you know," Dan says, looking down at the menu but smiling. "You're very special."

Phil forgets how to speak for a couple of seconds. It's weird to him that Dan can look beautiful even in the cold, harsh light of the falafel shop.

"Well, you're in luck because I am a very hungry person," he answers, playing with the sugar until Dan stops him with his hands. Phil shivers at the touch, but doesn't pull away. 

They order their food and don't say much whilst waiting for it to arrive. Phil is trying hard not to blush every time he lifts his eyes only to meet Dan's. 

"Now what? Have we exhausted all of our conversation over text?" Dan says, smiling, and Phil is so relieved that it's not awkward, not at all uncomfortable. It's just lovely and fresh and different, but familiar at the same time. It's not at all what Phil expects, but it's everything he needs. 

"I'm sorry, I'm shit at conversing in real life, I think."

"No, you're not," Dan answers. He opens his mouth as if to say something else, but stops himself just as the waiter, who looks aggressively tired, lays the falafel wraps in front of them.

They dig into the food, and Phil's mind races to think about the wind banging against the windows and how it sweeps through the buildings, making them whistle in the dark. 

"Do you think houses get scared when they're in a tornado?" he asks, and Dan looks at him like maybe he's gone insane, but a smile lingers on his lips, his mouth full of kebab. 

Phil laughs at his expression, feeling like he inhaled the helium out of a balloon. "What? It's a genuine question!" he insists, but laughs nonetheless when Dan rolls his eyes, swallowing as he ponders the question.

"Well, I think they must be. Like – in this weird universe inside your head where houses have feelings I mean – they're surely scared of being ripped to shreds and stuff." 

"Do alternate universes breach the laws of biology or physics? Or do they just interfere with the human history and stuff?" Phil asks, thinking about Stephen Hawking and how little he understands of the world and the universe. 

"I don't know. I thought it was only for humans and stuff, but if there are infinite universes, one must surely not subject to the physical and biological boundaries of ours." 

Ours. 

Dan goes back to take another bite of his food and, even with his mouth full and lips kind of greasy and shiny, Phil feels his heart warm at the conversation he was able to have with him. To talk about life and the universe sounds so cliché when you say it, but actually having someone you trust enough to talk about it with is something Phil doesn't feel like he had ever experienced. 

It all seems very much like a John Green book; like something that would only ever happen in teenage fiction and blockbuster movies, yet here they are, nearing four in the morning, talking about the universe over Döner Kebabs.

"Space kind of terrifies me." Phil says suddenly.

"Me too," Dan answers. He looks lost, and Phil feels like there's part of the answer missing. He gives it a minute and opens his mouth to speak, but Dan continues.

"I think humans terrify me more, though. Like, our world, which is an infinitely small speck of dust in this infinite universe, is already fucked up as is, and it's only because we're here," he says, looking into Phil's eyes for a split second before looking down again. Phil wants to reach out and touch his face, but grips at his jeans instead. 

They don't say anything for a while, until they decide to pay and leave. It's only when they're standing on the street again and Phil's about to say goodbye that Dan speaks again. 

"Hey, I know this is super weird and I–I don't mean to sound like a creep." It doesn't escape Phil that Dan stutters mid-sentence. "'Cause we only met like, two weeks ago or something, but I was wondering if you'd come with me to this family thing in Brighton?" 

After he finishes the sentence, it takes Phil about twelve seconds before he understands what Dan is asking of him. In any other situation, Phil would have considered it absolutely impossible, but Dan is looking at him like asking the question had taken a lot of effort, and suddenly it doesn't seem like that much to ask of him anymore. 

"Of course I'll come with you." 

Dan swings forward and wraps his arms tightly around Phil, burying his head into Phil's shoulder. The fit is kind of awkward because Dan's taller, but it still fits perfectly. Phil can smell his shampoo and reaches over Dan's shoulders to hug him back. 

There is a lot said about the curves on a girl's body, but as Phil traces Dan's bones and outlines the muscles on his back, he can't help but feel like the boy is a landscape, a view of mountains and valleys and rivers. From his shoulders to his back, from his back to his waist, from his waist to–

Dan unwraps himself from Phil and says they should probably both head home, and Phil agrees, his head swimming in the yellow light shining onto Dan's face, wondering if he got really tired all of a sudden.

_Your hands burned from touching his back and your mind swam in the yellow light you were surrounded by, a warm and weird feeling spreading over your chest._

~

**From Dan:**  
_ok im not gonna hold u to a promise u made at 3 in the morning  
but it would be hella nice if u could still come with me ngl_

Phil wakes up to Dan's messages on his phone and takes a few seconds to remember what promise he'd made. He admits to himself that it does seems a lot more daunting in the cold light of day, without looking at Dan's face to convince himself he’d made the right decision. 

**To Dan:**  
_when is it again?_

Phil doesn't want to disappoint him. Doesn't want to tell him that we won't be able to go, doesn't want Dan to have to go alone when he knows how terrifying that can be. 

**From Dan:**  
_its next weekend.. im sorry i asked i didn't mean to put you on the spot_

**To Dan:**  
_you didn't. when are we going?_

~

The trip is a couple of weeks from then, and Phil pushes it far into the back of his mind because his heartbeat increases every time he thinks of it. He doesn’t know how much of it is the unusual situation and how much of it is Dan. 

The proximity, the closeness Phil feels to him is so unusual, so scary yet so exciting. He finds himself excited to wake up so he can see what Dan has texted him, finds himself eager to actually leave the house to meet him, wants to be with him no matter what. His head had been drowning in this fog for such a long time, and with Dan it doesn’t feel as cloudy anymore. Or, well, it is still cloudy, but that’s okay. 

Which is how Phil finds himself here, standing in front of a very beat up old building twenty minutes away from his flat, waiting for the buzzer sound after ringing ‘Howell’ on the long list of doorbells. The door makes a horrible noise, and Phil pushes it open as Dan's voice tells him to go to the third floor.

By the time Phil reaches Dan's front door he is panting as Dan's apartment building sadly lacks a lift. He tries to mask his heavy breathing with a yawn as Dan opens the door. 

"Wow, I haven't even spoken and you're already bored," Dan greets him with a grin, and Phil laughs, already feeling the weight – the weight that he somehow always carries – lifting off his shoulders just a little bit. 

Phil looks around the flat but it seems very sparsely furnished and has a weird feeling to it, like Dan had just moved in. He touches the walls and the back of the sofa with the tips of his fingers, and notices how Dan's smell, the one that always clings to his clothes after they said goodbye, isn't present at all in the tiny living room. 

"Hey, how long have you lived here?" he asks, trying not to sound judgemental as Dan starts the PlayStation. 

"Almost a year now," he answers, his eyes following Phil's around the room. "Somehow I never found the time to furnish it properly? It kind of came like this and I just let it be. Doesn't really feel like home, but that's ok I guess." 

"You need some plushies or some colorful chairs around the table or something," Phil says, motioning to the sad metal chair that looks incredibly lonely next to the wooden table that feels way too big for the room.

"I had huge plans for it, I swear. I'd picked out the colors for the walls and Ikea furniture and everything, but then uni got a bit much and I didn't feel like doing it anymore. The more time passed, the more it felt like it was useless since it's a rental flat anyway, you know what I mean?" Dan speaks thoughtfully, like he had pondered on it many times before. 

"Still, I mean, you should try to make it feel more homely. My flat's also a rental and I hate the carpet, but I tried to make it seem like a nice place, I guess, and the attempt kinda helped me." 

And Phil actually had. He had painted the walls the color of the universe, placed pushies and strange objects on every windowsill, had hung up posters and pictures, but none of it helped. Home is a concept of the mind, and no matter how physically present, Phil doesn’t really know how to get it to work.

"Maybe someday I'll do it properly. You know, give the cat a name and such." 

Dan looks at Phil, and Phil sees in his eyes that he’s expecting him to get some sort of reference, but he doesn’t. Dan smiles and blushes, seeming kind of embarrassed at Phil's clear look of confusion.

"You know? Breakfast at Tiffany's?" Dan says, blush deepening now as Phil's face splits open in a smile. "'If I could find a real life place to make me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name,'" Dan quotes dramatically, smiling as Phil lets out a chuckle.

"You like those sorts of movies, then? Wouldn't have expected that, to be honest," Phil teases and sits down next to Dan, bumping into his shoulder, still giggling. 

"What? It's a classic!" Dan tries to defend himself, turning to look at Phil, his face close enough for Phil to smell his breath, which sounds gross but really isn't. It’s just warm, like everything else about him. 

Before he can stop himself, Phil reaches forward and brushes a strand of hair out of Dan's eyes, and Dan's smile fades as quickly as Phil pulls his hand back. He curses at himself and looks at the floor under his feet, feeling like he doesn’t know how to feel. 

For the first time since the first time, a kind of awkward silence surrounds them as Phil shuffles away a little bit, feeling the cold spot where his shoulder had been touching Dan's before. 

"So," Dan says, looking straight at the TV. "Wanna play Fallout 4?"

~

The awkwardness thankfully doesn’t last very long, and it’s nearing 1AM when Phil stands up, saying he'd better leave.

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty late already. Next time, you can bring your PJ's and we'll have a proper nerd sleepover with a Harry Potter marathon or something," Dan says, standing up as well and leaning into Phil. 

"Yeah," Phil responds because he doesn’t know what else to say. He looks into Dan's eyes a moment, and they are so close. The darkness outside the window makes it seem like they are swimming in the dim light of Dan's living room, makes it seem like nothing is real. 

And then Dan is walking towards the front door, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. Phil chuckles.

"I'll be out of your hair in a second, could I maybe just use the loo first?" he asks, and Dan points towards the door on the left with another yawn.

Phil doesn’t really need to use the toilet, but he needs a mirror, needs to look into his own eyes and get back into his body. He taps his wrist with two fingers a couple of times and takes deep breaths, hoping to get the floating feeling to leave before he has to walk home alone in the dark. It only half works. 

"I- He's just a friend Tom, you know this," he hears Dan speak, he guesses into a phone, as he leaves the loo. Dan has his backside turned to him, and his shirt is creeping up his back in a way that Phil can’t help admiring. 

"Well, if you're so jealous of him, why don't you come over?" Dan asks, and it kind of stings against Phil's chest. "He's just about to leave, and I've not had a good fuck in ages."

Placeholder, distraction, friend.

Phil didn't know such a positive word could sting this much as he stops feeling his face and kind of trips towards the door. As he reaches the empty streets he doesn't even know which way to walk and his head hurts, his vision not blurry, but out of focus. 

His white shoes shine against the pavement and he feels a chill up his spine before realizing he's left his jacket. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That's all he is, a stupid person who forgets stupid jackets and creates stupid expectations that could, and would, never come true. 

Dan will never like him, much less love him, and he feels cheated, feels betrayed, feels like he's one of the pebbles he's stepping on as he walks into his building. Nothing but another stupid disappointment. 

He doesn't know if he's angry or sad, and gets into bed in jeans and forgets to take his contact lenses out. He wants to scream or punch something or die, and it hurts like he hadn’t ever expected it to. It hurts, not in a pretty way, but in a mean, burning kind of way, and he can't breathe. 

It takes a couple of hours before he's finally able to drift off to sleep, and the last thing he notices is his phone lighting up on the nightstand. 

From Dan:  
hope u got home ok after not saying goodbye lol  
also u left ur jacket here

~

It takes over a week for Phil to hear from Dan again, and he's dissociated from the situation to the point where the pain is only a dull hum in the back of his mind. He thinks he's fine with things as they are, although it is difficult going back to being alone after having had Dan, even if he hadn’t really had him. 

And the saddest thing is, he doesn't feel like he's supposed to feel this way. He feels clingy, broken. He feels like he’d been living a love story all by himself. So he forces himself not to think about it, and it doesn't hurt until it does. 

It's all fine until it's 4AM on a Tuesday morning and Phil is trying to go to sleep, eyes burning from how tired he is, but his brain not letting him sleep. 

He’s standing up to go get his melatonin pills from the kitchen when he hears the buzzer, the sound of it so loud that it startles him to the very bone. 

Phil stares at the microwave clock, assuring himself that he's not invited anyone, and that it is strange that someone would come over at 4AM. He waits to see whether the buzzer rings again, just to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. 

_Bzzzz_

The buzzer rings again, and Phil looks at the little monitor to see who it could be. 

Outside, hood up and face darkened by the shadow of the building’s entrance, stands Dan, and Phil hates himself for recognizing him when someone who doesn't care and never would. He hates that he presses the button to open the door without even thinking about it, hates that he’s already running towards the front door to unlock it so that Dan can come in.

He unlocks it and Dan is standing outside. His hood is down now, and Phil would rather it be up again, because Dan looks like shit. His eyes are bloodshot and there are streaks of tears down his cheeks, and he looks like he's not slept since June. 

Phil thinks of about a million things he'd like to say, but no words come out of his mouth; it seems impossible for him to say anything. He thinks back to everything he’d wanted to say to Dan, to hurt him like Dan had hurt him. He wants to ask what gives him the right to come here when they haven’t spoken in over two weeks, and how dare he come here now. 

Instead, he steps forward and takes Dan's hand, which is really cold in his. He drags him inside and up the stairs, all the way up to the lounge, where he sits him down on the sofa. He watches the streetlights that pour through the window flicker in Dan's teary eyes, and only lets go of Dan's hand when the first tear streaks down his cheek. They sit next to each other, and Phil doesn't know where to put his arms. Dan's head digs into his shoulder as he sobs, so loudly that Phil is afraid that he's having an asthma attack. 

"Phil, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he sobs, and sobs. "I'm so sorry, Phil." 

He sobs for so long that Phil ends up kind of crying into Dan's hair, running his fingers through his hair in slow, even strokes, until he calms down, which happens when the sky is turning from dark blue into purple. Phil lays a blanket over Dan when he sees he's fallen asleep on the couch. 

~

"Dan, what happened?"

It's the next morning, and Dan has bags under his eyes that would impress even insomniacs. He's sitting cross legged on the couch, holding the cup of coffee Phil had made him over half an hour ago. 

"I–" he starts, and immediately seems to be on the brink of tears again. "I know you heard the phone call that day. That's why you ran off, isn't it? I'm so sorry, Phil." 

"Dan, I–" Phil thinks about making up an excuse, thinks about lying to make himself seem somewhat less pathetic. But it's useless. "Yeah, I did." 

"Phil, about Tom, you need to know how sorry I am that you heard that," Dan goes on, and Phil starts to consider whether he can handle listening to it. 

"Dan, it's nothing, you don't have to say anything. It's not like we were dating or anything."

"No, it's not nothing, Phil," Dan insists. He stands up, and sits on the grey dining chair, facing Phil. He stretches out a hand to touch Phil's leg, but settles it on his own instead. "Tom and I broke up last night, that's why I'm here."

There's a moment silence, and Phil is confused. Dan broke up with someone? Why?

"You see, me and Tom we were never exclusive. I've been kind of hanging onto him since freshmen year, and he rings me when he wants to fool around with someone or something – anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I was feeling super weird that night when you left my place."

Dan looks down at his fingers, and Phil's heart is pounding out of his chest while his mind barely even understands what's going on.

"Maybe I read the situation wrong, or maybe you didn't mean it that way or – well, I don't know. But suddenly I felt weird - you must have felt it too right?"

Phil nods. "Yeah, so I called Tom and said that awful thing, and Phil I didn't mean it, I just didn't want to be alone, I guess. But every time he got near me I felt wrong and kind of, I dunno, violated, maybe? So yesterday he came over to mine and I told him I wanted to break up –" Dan's voice breaks and Phil wants to reach out and touch him, brush away the tears forming against his lashes. "He didn't take it very well. Told me I was ungrateful and called me a slut and lots of horrible names, and then when I told him to leave, he pushed me against the wall and tried to kiss me and– "

Dan's sobbing again, and Phil plunges forward and grabs him in a hug that he wishes would convey to Dan everything he wishes he could properly say. Phil feels like he's going to cry too, like he wants to hold Dan in this embrace forever, like he wishes he could promise better things, but he doesn't know how to. 

Dan sobs and sobs and sobs, and when he stops he crawls back onto the couch, pulling Phil by the hand. He stays there, holding Dan's hand. He holds it until he falls asleep, until the day turns grayer and grayer and then finally black; until the yellowish street light shines up the walls, and Dan sleeps.


	4. Chapter 4

It isn’t until noon the next day that Dan wakes up from his slumber and stumbles into the kitchen, where Phil is heating up a microwave lasagna. 

Phil stares at Dan for a moment, and curses himself when the first thing he thinks about is how beautiful he looks, even under the harsh kitchen light. He thinks about everything that Dan said yesterday, thinks about what he said about reading the situation wrong, and then curses himself for focusing on that when there were other, more important things.

And now they're in this weird situation that Phil doesn't know how to acknowledge, where he felt the change in the atmosphere at Dan's too. What did it mean? He knows that Dan isn't just anyone, and he thinks he might mean something to him, but he has no clue about how to talk about it, bring it up, get things to move forward in some kind of direction. Everything feels too sensitive and too messed up to think about, let alone talk about. 

"I hope you like vegetarian lasagna, because that's what we had in the freezer," is what he ends up saying, the 'we' slipping off his tongue smoothly. It turns out to be the right choice, because Dan chuckles and says he loves vegetarian lasagna. Phil's heart feels lighter at the sound of Dan's voice and his chuckle, and he reminds himself to give people more credit for how they deal with shitty situations.

"You're not a vegetarian though, are you?" Phil asks, carefully trying to remember whether they'd already exchanged this information. 

"No, I'm not. I've gone vegan for a month though, and I think generally that's where the world is headed anyway," Dan says, and Phil nods as he takes two plates out of the cupboard. He fills two glasses with watered down ribena and tells Dan to take them into the lounge so they can eat, but Dan stops at the kitchen door. 

"Thank you, by the way. I know I have no right." 

Phil stares at the stove top, not really knowing how to respond, or what he's supposed to do. All he knows it's how he feels, how his heart is straining against his chest thinking about Dan, how he'd take him in whatever form he wanted, at any given time. 

"Dan, you'll always have a place with me," he says, still not daring to face Dan. He opens the microwave nine seconds before the time is up just to have something to do with his hands. Dan leaves the kitchen and Phil is all the more confused. His heart aches a little bit thinking about Dan and how Phil’s probably made him feel uncomfortable. 

He picks up the plates with a big piece of lasagna each and carries them into the lounge, joining Dan at the table. He looks so tired that Phil wishes he could alleviate his tiredness, wishes he had something better to offer than frozen vegetarian lasagna. 

They eat in silence in front of the TV, sitting next to each other, and Phil is startled when he feels Dan's foot brush up against his. He stares at Dan, but he's looking at the TV. He looks down at his plate, doesn't know what this means, and then Dan's reaching out to touch his hand. The brush of skin on skin is so overwhelming that Phil almost pulls his hand away. Thankfully, he doesn't, and they sit together, feet slowly interlocking and fingers brushing, until the credits roll and the DVD goes back to the menu screen. 

Although Phil is a quiet person, he's never really dealt with long silences well, has always tried to fill the room with words and questions. He has always tried to lift the weight of the atmosphere, to get people to talk, to feel like he had to do nothing but listen. But sitting here with Dan is different, is as close to comfortable as Phil has ever felt, is like he could stay in his own mind while at the same time sharing a part of himself with someone else. Nothing has ever felt quite as intimate as those soft and shallow touches amidst the silence of the dimming light of the day. 

By the time they take the plates back to the kitchen, the afternoon is almost over. Phil washes the dishes, then sits down in the living room to write an article that’s due the next night. Dan sits beside him on the couch, on his phone, and when it is almost dinnertime, Phil realizes Dan's fallen asleep. 

Phil knows that kind of exhaustion, knows what it’s like to be tired despite minimal effort, knows how painful it can be to stay awake, to stay conscious. He watches Dan sleep and loses his appetite – something that happens to him quite frequently. He keeps sitting and writing, checking the patterns of Dan's breathing as he slides down the couch and ends up with his head on Phil's thigh. 

The pitter patter inside of Phil's chest doesn't even startle him anymore. It has been coming and going since he and Dan met up for kebabs so many weeks ago. It doesn't startle Phil, but it does still scare him in a way that seems to radiating from his core. Still, his heart skips and trips a little when Dan mumbles and shifts position, cheek smushed against Phil's thigh, mouth just a little bit open. 

It's seems like a lifetime and not time at all have passed since that day on the train. 

Phil can only think about how densely packed together Dan’s lashes are, how stark a contrast they pose to the thin, pale skin under his eyes. They move with the fluttering of Dan's eyelids, and Phil can't concentrate on anything else anymore. He's tired too, and when he catches himself wanting to close his eyes he decides it's time for bed. 

He nudges Dan and whispers, "Dan, I think we have to go to sleep properly," but gets no reaction. Phil moves his leg, and Dan's head drops onto the couch, jolting him awake.   
"What, what?" Dan asks, in a voice that is urgent while still being no louder than a whisper. 

"Nothing," Phil answers, in a hushed tone, as smooth as he can manage. "I just think we should go to bed properly, otherwise we'll just damage our spines on the couch."

He brushes Dan's hair out of his face, seemingly having lost the connection between rational thoughts and actions. 

"No, please, I'm so comfy," says Dan, pressing his face back into the couch and closing his eyes. Phil almost touches him again, almost brushes his hair out of his face again, but doesn't. 

"C'mon, you can sleep in my bed. It's big enough for the both of us."

He says it before he thinks it. Dan had slept on the sofa the past night, but there are no blinds in the living room and Dan is so tall that his feet were probably hanging off the edge. Phil's suggestion doesn't seem that absurd. 

It's not like he doesn't know what this implies – his bed, his room. It's his space, there’re his boundaries. But Dan looks so soft and sleepy, and it's not like there's any big harm in sharing a bed, so Phil reckons it'll be okay. Mostly he knows how cold his bed will be, and would much rather Dan was there next to him. Pitter patter be damned, they can be friends. 

Dan doesn't answer, but he does stand up and sleepily goes to brush his teeth while Phil stuffs an extra pillow into a fresh pillowcase and chooses a pair of pajama bottoms for Dan to wear. By the time he finds clean ones, Dan is stumbling into the room and then into the bed, his hair pushed back and eyes visibly heavy with sleep. 

Phil goes to brush his teeth, rinses with mouthwash, takes out his contact lenses and uses the toilet before climbing into bed next to Dan and turning off the lamp on the bedside table. 

"Did you brush your teeth?" Dan asks, and Phil nods, even though it's dark. 

"Yeah, you smell minty," Dan says, sighing, and turns around. Phil listens to his breathing until it evens out and shifts a little bit closer before drifting off to sleep. 

_Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat._

~

It's not until morning that Phil realises that Dan sleeps without trousers on, his pale left leg stretching out on the bed, contrasting against Phil's blue duvet. He can't help but look at the soft curve of Dan's thigh, the soft peachy hair growing on it and the fact that it seems as if it has not seen the sun in years. Dan's hugging the pillow and half of Phil's duvet is between his thighs, his mouth slightly agape and his hair pushed back. 

Dan mumbles in his sleep and Phil finally admits to himself that he's been staring a bit too long for it not to be creepy, but when he goes to stand up he realises how close together they're lying. Dan's arm drapes over his belly and one of his feet is on Phil's calf. There's no way he can move without waking Dan up. Looking at the dark circles under his eyes, Phil resigns himself to settle down and wait for him to wake up. He focuses hard on thinking about anything other than Dan's thigh, which has shuffled even closer. He’s about run out of grandmother thoughts by the time Dan's eyes finally flutter open, the sun shining thick and warm through the cracks in his blinds. 

It's a bit awkward because they're so close together, so Phil closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep in order to allow Dan to untangle himself. He doesn't know whether he imagines the touch, but Dan's hand seems to linger on his chest after using it to steady himself while standing up, leaving the room to go to the bathroom. 

Phil lets out a breath and sits up, putting on his glasses and opening his blinds, shuffling quietly into the kitchen to put the kettle on. 

"Morning," Dan mumbles, standing at the kitchen door. His hair has been rearranged into that sort of fluffy fringe he has, but he's still in pants and Phil's loose grey t-shirt. Phil tries very hard to shift his thoughts away from Dan's long legs, and only partially succeeds. 

"Morning" Phil answers, pouring the boiled water into two mugs. "English breakfast or Earl Grey?" 

"English Breakfast. Thought you were more of a coffee guy though?" is Dan's answer as he sits down at the small table. Phil wishes he could take the time to look at Dan in his kitchen, looking kind of magnificent even in pajamas and bed marks on his face. 

"Usually I am but I forgot to go out on Saturday to buy more coffee and then yesterday stuff was closed. I'll go to the shops after I take a shower." 

Phil high-fives himself mentally for not stuttering at all, even though it shouldn't be that surprising to him now. He thinks he might be the only person who's still afraid of speaking to someone after they've shared a bed all night. 

They drink silently and then Phil throws a couple of crumpets into the toaster while they eat the little bit of cereal that was still left. There's nothing much to say, and Phil settles into the comfortable quietness, taking it as a good sign, a good indicator of how much they've progressed considering they weren't even speaking a few days ago. 

"Did you sleep well? Sorry I'm a bit of a cover hog." Dan says as they're finishing the last of the tea. 

"No worries. I always sleep with socks on, so I tend to be cozy all night."

"Yeah I know" Dan says. There's an awkward beat. "I mean, I don't really know, I just meant that I understand that you probably do run cozy seeing as you sleep with socks on and everything." 

Phil loves Dan stumbly and fumbling over his words, his chest is warm and he reaches out and touches Dan's foot with the tip of his toes. He chuckles into his tea, fogging up his glasses, which makes Dan chuckle back at him. Phil cleans them on his t-shirt and Dan stares at him from behind the rim of his cup rolling his eyes, but in a cute way. 

"The glasses suit you, I like them." He mumbles, and Phil thinks he sees the slightest tinge of red on his cheeks. "You look really good." 

~

Dan insists on going to the shops with Phil. They get chips and salsa and popcorn to eat later, and Phil is feeling almost giddy, almost like a child at the fact that Dan's staying another night. And it's all the more weird because Phil has always loved his time alone, been almost proud of how self-sufficient he was. But when he was with Dan it was like being alone, but with someone. Like being alone and not being alone at the same time. 

They run the errands and get starbucks drinks on the way home, sipping from the cups, admiring the especially bad handwriting of the barista that, for some reason, spelled Phil's name with two L's. 

"Thanks for the starbucks. Although I did buy the chips, so I guess that makes us even." Dan says, leaning into Phil's side in a kind of shove that is kind of meant as a hug. 

Dan is hard around the edges, and Phil is starting to figure out that little things like a shove or a curse word are often more lovingly meant that Phil would usually interpret when it comes to Dan. But Phil thinks that's okay; he likes Dan regardless of his rough edges, or maybe even a little bit because of them. 

So when Dan says that with the little shove Phil turns his head just in time to catch Dan staring at him, a closed-mouth smile on his lips, and then he looks down. Phil has butterflies in his stomach, has something tickling his insides. Their day together had been so stressless, so uneventful in such a good way. Phil feels as if he's at home even though there are still seven blocks to go. 

When they finally get back to the flat Dan picks out the movie while Phil prepares the snacks. He does so and then goes to his room to change into his PJ's, into the bathroom and takes out his contacts. He puts on his glasses with Dan's compliment from this morning still ringing in his ears. 

When he goes into the lounge Dan's sat on the sofa already munching on the popcorn and changed into his PJ's, or, in his case, the t-shirt and lack of pants from this morning. The menu of the movie he'd picked plays soft music in the background, and he clicks play once Phil is settled on the couch next to him. 

Once they've finished the snacks they settle under the blanket Phil has on the couch, moving ever closer. Phil is incredibly aware of Dan's presence, his heat, his breathing. He thinks about every centimeter he moves, thinks about every sound he makes, every time he sighs out. But Dan doesn't seem to notice or mind – he settles his head on Phil's shoulder and puts a hand on his thigh as the movie reaches its climax, and Phil bites his lip. 

Once the movie is over he dares to look over at Dan, whose eyes have gone sleepy and hazy, like he's almost falling asleep already. Phil reaches to brush his hair back, but stops himself. It's only been a couple of days since they've made up, the last thing he wants is for things to turn awkward again. 

So Phil shuts off the TV, turns off the lounge lights and guides Dan into the bathroom so that they can brush their teeth. He nearly drags him into the bedroom and into bed, and only stops to think about the fact that Dan's going to be sleeping in his bed again after they're both already under the covers. 

He turns off the lamp on his nightstand and turns to Dan, but can barely make out his silhouette now that it's dark and he's taken off his glasses. He can hear Dan's slow shuffle around the bed, the little sounds his mouth makes and his breathing. 

Suddenly he feels Dan's hand on his face, brushing his hair back. 

"Phil," Dan whispers, shuffling a little bit closer, his knee touching Phil's hipbone. 

There's a long silence, a sigh, and then Dan's breath evens out and Phil knows he's fallen asleep. There's a shiver running down his spine, and he closes his eyes, making his peace with the fact that sleep is yet far off. 

~

They spend the next day playing video games and Dan makes endless fun of Phil after he repeatedly beats him at Mario Kart. 

"I thought you said you were good!" Dan kind of shouts, and laughs and laughs and laughs. Phil tries to put on a hurt face, an angry face, but it's impossible to control his smile when he looks at Dan. He's so happy, seems so much happier than a few days ago when he knocked on Phil's door in the middle of the night. Phil almost lets himself slip into thinking he may be responsible for that, but stops just in time.

Phil is always stunned by the fact that his mood varies so rapidly and so intensely depending on the day. It's not like he can control it, and to some degree he's used to it, but it never ceases to be surprising and slightly suspicious when he gets more than a day where his brain shuts up completely and allows him to be present and calm. 

But when Dan is around, it feels like even when the bad tides roll around, they always keep away. Always there, but never daring to overtake him. 

It's so scary to think about that Phil decides to shut it out – only he can't. His mind is now rushing down a spiral, about how dependent he is on Dan, how much it would hurt if he were to leave, how difficult it is not having control over the situation when it includes someone else. 

Phil's breathing races and he thanks the sky for the fact that Dan is in the kitchen and not here to witness him sort of falling apart. Four in, hold for eight, exhale for seven. Or was it four in, hold seven and eight out? Phil can't remember how he's supposed to be breathing, which makes it worse. 

He asks himself where people go when they're lonely, what space he occupies when the blue-ness inside him consumes the rest. He wonders where Dan goes when he feels the same way, if his eyes lose their spark, if he loses it in the same way Phil does. 

Dan comes into the room and doesn't look surprised or shocked or afraid to find Phil breathing heavily. Rather he looks at him for a second before putting down the coffee mugs and sitting down quietly, holding Phil's hand and running the other one down his back. They stay like that until Dan puts his head on his shoulder and Phil can finally feel his breathing calm down. 

Quietly and to himself, Phil steadies his breath, grips at Dan's hand firmly, and knows that he would follow him wherever he needed to go. 

~


	5. Chapter 5

It's precisely 6:38 in the morning when Phil hovers over the snooze button for the second time. Instead, he shuts the alarm off and forces himself out of bed, losing all of the heat he'd built up in his sleep. Outside, the light is faint, but the sky looks clear and the house is cold.

His bag is (thankfully) already packed in the corner, and his clothes for the day are also laid out. He feels like he's only slept about 2 hours, which is very close to the truth. 

( _No more packing at 3AM_ , he thinks to himself, without much confidence in actually keeping the promise.)

He goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on before returning to his room to put on his black jeans, t-shirt and jumper. His jacket sits on top of his bag and he's considering putting it on as well just as the kettle beeps from the kitchen. 

His coffee sits on the counter as he hops around on one foot at a time to put on his shoes and goes over the checklist of things Dan had told him to bring. This includes sunscreen, a bathing suit, a towel, and flip flops. He doesn’t know how on earth Dan can think it'll be warm enough, since it’s still March, but he’d packed each item regardless, his little black backpack just on the brink of explosion. 

Phil won't really let himself think about the situation. The train, the lunch, the family, the beach, Dan, who Phil already misses in spite of having seen him two days ago. Dan, who’d had a boyfriend and now doesn’t anymore. Dan who makes Phil's stomach whirl in a good way. Dan. 

It's 6:59 by the time he's out the door. 

~

"There you are!" Dan shouts from a few feet away, walking past a large group of bored- looking teenagers and reaching Phil at the far end of the platform. Their train leaves in eight minutes, and Phil's palms are sweaty from nerves. 

"Hey," Phil says, and reaches out, not really knowing with which intent until Dan puts an arm around him, squeezes, and then lets go. Phil's hand slightly brushes against Dan's waist and he retracts it so fast it almost feels like he got shocked.

"Can't believe you actually made it out of bed so early in the morning," Dan chuckles.

"You're lucky I've had my coffee, otherwise I'd be eating you right now," he answers, which only makes Dan laugh harder. He tries to hide his smile. "Stop being so cheerful, it's not even 8AM and I've been on two different underground lines and a bus. Not exactly the start to a perfect day." 

"Well, the good thing about waking early is that there's still enough time to turn the day back around," is Dan's answer, and Phil enjoys the quiet smiles they exchange as they listen to the train approaching their platform.

The train fills up with people, and is full to the point where Dan and Phil have to stand very close to each other as well as to the door. As it turns out, they're not the only ones visiting the beach on the first sunny weekend of the year. Phil tries to steady his breathing, but the surrounding people, as well as the situation in general, are quite stressful. 

"Hey," Dan says quietly, as most people seem to be in a dull state of early-morning zombieness. "Thanks again for coming with me. I don't know what I would have done otherwise." 

And just like that, Phil is okay about being stressed, he's calmer about the whole situation. He looks into Dan's eyes and then down at his hands and he breathes out a chuckle.

"It's really no problem. I'm happy to have a reason to get out of bed." He means it to sound lighthearted and jokey, but even though Dan chuckles in response, Phil feels as if he understands the meaning behind it. 

About half an hour later, Phil is almost dozing off standing and is leaning against the window when he feels Dan shake him awake. 

"Hey, which carriage are we in?" Dan asks, and his voice is calm with an undertone of slight panic. 

"Twelve, I think. We were standing at the very end of the platform, remember?" Phil asks, and doesn't really understand where the question is coming from, but his heart starts beating faster in his chest.

"Shit. We have to move to six. The train's doing that thing where it's going to split in two, and only carriages one to six are going to Brighton," Dan answers, and as Phil looks around at the crowd of people, he's 100% sure they'll never make it. He looks at Dan's face and knows he's come to the exact same conclusion. 

"We'll have to run out and in again," is Dan's solution. Phil gulps. 

They make it just before the doors close on them, and Phil's backpack almost gets stuck in the closing doors as the train begins to move again. His heartbeat is everywhere, but he laughs as he looks at Dan's red face, blushing from the adrenaline and cold air. 

"That's it for exercise this year," Dan decides, and then he laughs as well.

They manage to find seats near the window, and Phil isn't all that bothered about their seats facing the opposite way like he usually is. The scenery outside is beautiful, and Phil stares at Dan's soft reflection in the window until he drifts off into a sleep that he knows will be interrupted in too short an amount of time. 

~ 

Dan's house isn't very big, but instead of a backyard, he has the beach. 

"Did you grow up here?" comes Phil's question as soon as they step out onto the porch in the back, feeling the sea-breeze on his face and finally realizing how much he's missed it. 

(In the back of his mind, Phil allows himself a short moment of imagining moving to the sea with Dan one day. They'd have rocking chairs on a porch, where they'd sit with ankles tangled together and the sound of the ocean.) 

"Nah, my parents moved here the year I moved away to uni, so I didn't really get to enjoy it that much," he says, looking ahead at the horizon and scratching the back of his neck. "But it is nice having the option of coming here. Maybe I should do it more often," he adds, almost in a whisper, almost under his breath. 

"You know, I read once that the cure for everything is salt water," Phil says, and then turns to look at Dan. "Sweat, tears–"

"And the ocean." Dan smiles. "Yeah, I've heard that one. Used to love it when I was younger, but I'm not sure I believe in it as much anymore."

"Why not?"

"Well, sometimes you get past the point where working hard will actually benefit anyone, tears serve only as emotional relief and sometimes not even that, and the ocean sometimes rejects you just as much as the next thing," he breathes out in one go, and then looks down at his feet.

Phil wants to push the fringe out of Dan’s face, wants to touch his lips and kiss his eyelids, but he doesn't.

"Have you always been this cynical?" is what he asks, but he doesn't mean it as criticism.

"I didn't want to be," Dan answers, and turns around, leaning against the fence and staring at his parent's house with tight lips and half-closed eyes against the brightness.

Phil stares at him intently, trying to find out his purpose here, trying to figure Dan out, but he fails and stares ahead again. 

~

"It's very brown." 

"Yeah, I know. I think my parents picked out the wrong color, because they know black's my favorite but didn't think I'd be suitable for a bedroom. I guess they picked the next best thing," Dan answers and shrugs. "At least they brought all my stuff so that I wouldn't have to throw it all out." 

And that sure is true. 

Apart from about one billion DVDs and video games, Dan has an impressive collection of Guitar Hero guitars, a drum set, and about 14 different microphones. When Phil points this out, Dan shrugs again and explains that he used to want to work in theatre, and Phil wonders aloud why he didn't.

"Well, it's not like anyone ever makes it. It just seemed really stupid at the time and I thought law would maybe get me better jobs or something, I don't know," he sighs. "Sometimes I wonder whether I'm making a huge mistake, but whatever." 

Phil wants to tell him that it's not whatever, that he should seek out his own happiness, that he should look for something that he loves, but Dan's mum knocks on the door. She lets them know that the first family members are arriving, and that they should come downstairs. He'd be kind of a hypocrite saying all of that anyway, seeing as he's never had the courage to see anything through.

"Whose birthday are we celebrating again?" Phil asks nervously as they're walking down the stairs.

"Uncle Jim's. His house is too small and all that, so that's why we're celebrating here." Dan stops two steps down and looks up at Phil. He reaches out to brush Phil's hair out of his face, and his fingers touch his hand for half a second on the way back down. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah," Phil lets out, his breath shaky. "Yeah, I'm alright."

~

Dan's family is nice and homely, and even though his dad is a bit distant, everything seems to be going okay. Phil has even managed to make Dan's grandma laugh, so he's rather proud of how the day's turned out. 

He’s been stuffed with about a hundred different pieces of cake by the time they climb the stairs up to Dan's bedroom again. The light outside is dim and there's the slightest hue of orange near the horizon. Sunsets have always been his weakness, and Phil has to tear away his gaze in order not to tear up, and he doesn't even understand why. 

"God, this sky," he breathes out, looking away from the window and towards Dan. He’s sitting in the corner and picking up his computer, which had been sitting on the floor near the only plug in the room. He settles it onto the bed before moving closer to the window and sitting with his back turned away from the bright orange light. 

"I know. And I don't even like orange," he says, chuckling, and Phil giggles even though it's not funny. 

The room is eerily quiet, and not even the muffled voices of Dan's family travel upstairs anymore. It's warm and the light is beautiful against the wooden floor, even though it's old and cracked. He wonders how the shades of brown of Dan's eyes must be dancing right then, but refrains from looking closer. He feels somewhat close to calm, and the feeling is so rare that it seems like it would take very little for it to go away again.

Dan walks across the room to look out the window, and Phil quietly joins him. They sit on the floor, face to face, with their knees up to their chins and feet touching. From his side, Phil can just see a little corner of the ocean, which kind of dances with shades of grey and blue as the sky gets darker and darker. 

"Sunsets are kind of the perfect example of how beauty can hurt," Dan says, in a voice that's way too loud for the quiet room, a disruption – but not a bad one. He's clearly looking for a reaction, but Phil can't give him one, so he doesn't. 

His toes are on Dan's toes, their socks completely mismatched, and the world is once again quiet as they sit together until the sky is only shades of blue. 

~

It's nearing midnight, and Phil is starting to doze off. The laptop screen in front of him is too bright, and the music is very melodic, the actors' voices are muffled and distant, and he feels himself melting more and more into the mattress, feeling warm and safe.

"Phil."

He doesn't open his eyes, he's too tired, he's feeling himself get swept away by the waves, drowning in an orange horizon and caramel eyes– 

"Phil!" Dan says a little louder, not whispering anymore.

He shakes Phil awake and says something, but Phil can't understand it through his haze and Dan's mumble.

"What?"

"I said, let's go to bed. Are you okay with sharing? Otherwise, I'll get the lilo downstairs."

"I'm whatever, I just want to sleep," Phil says, and reaches towards his backpack, pulling out his pyjama bottoms. Without thinking he's unbuttoning his jeans and taking them off, nearly falling down whilst trying to get them past his ankles. 

"Well, less work for me then," is what Dan mumbles, and takes off his jeans as well. 

Phil climbs into bed and under the duvet. Dan's bed is not quite double sized, but it is large and Phil is a little cold that he doesn’t mind having Dan's warmth next to him. His heart beats a little faster at the thought. 

He takes off his glasses, which he'd put on before the movie, and catches a glimpse of Dan taking his shirt off. His skin is soft and milky and beautiful, and Phil is disappointed, albeit slightly relieved, when he puts on a t-shirt and climbs into bed next to him. 

Phil is lying on his back, and when he turns his head to the side, Dan is turned completely towards him, his face darkened by the faint orange light of the lamp behind him. 

"Hey," he says, and although he mumbles it, Phil is quite awake to hear it. "Thanks for coming with me. Family stuff stresses me out, having you here helped a lot." 

"It was nothing," Phil replies quietly, not wanting to disrupt the moment as he feels Dan shuffle just a little bit closer to him, so his bent knee is touching Phil's hip.

He reaches down and finds Phil's hand, giving it a quick squeeze before letting go and turning onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Phil's hand prickles with the touch, and his breath is kind of shaky even after Dan whispers good night, turning off the light as he does.

~

He has a weird dream about sand stuck on his eyelashes, thinks of the Sandman tale, and stumbles awake at a time that is clearly way too early, judging by the angle through which the light is entering the room. 

Dan is still fast asleep lying next to him, their bodies almost mirroring each other were it not for Dan's arm reaching over in the direction of Phil's tummy. His mouth is slightly open and his eyelids flutter at a dream he must be having. 

Phil's chest feels tight. 

His hand moves almost of its own accord towards Dan's arm, the one that's so close to him, and he places the lightest of touches onto the back of his hand using his index finger. His skin is just as soft as Phil had thought, and he doesn't even stir at the touch of Phil's cold finger against the veins showing through the pale skin.

_You couldn’t dare to think it but you knew it to be true. The tightness in your stomach was the answer to a question you were not prepared to ask._

~

It must be a couple of hours still before Dan starts to stir awake, and Phil finally resolves to get out of his hazy semi-awakeness and sits up, instantly missing the heat he had accumulated over the night. It's so unlike him to wake up so early that the light that pours in through the cracks in the blinds seems to be wrong. 

The sun shines pale, but the room already feels warmer than it did the night before. Phil wants to dip his toes into the ocean and build castles like when he was a child, and for a single moment he can almost picture how he felt back then. He wishes he could be a child again but - it seems painfully cliche to him - the fact is that he's unfit to handle adulthood and would like to remain a child forever. 

But he didn't know Dan when he was a child. Even back then he was rather lonely. 

He turns around again and looks at Dan just as he opens his eyes and seems completely unperturbed at Phil's presence. 

"That's why I'm so cold." Dan says as he stretches and yawns, kicking the duvet off sitting up cross-legged on the bed. Phil likes the look of sleep on Dan's face, how his worries seem like they've been washed away. Dan looks years and years younger than he did yesterday, and Phil wonders what hides behind the swollen eyebags he saw just yesterday morning. 

"It's beautiful out," Phil says, staring out the window and then towards Dan. Dan’s hair is curly and pointing in multiple directions, his eyes still crinkly from sleep, his old t-shirt so worn out that it hangs low on his collarbones. Phil feels all kinds of disturbed and embarrassed before staring out the window and forcing himself to think the most un-sexy thoughts he can fathom when Dan stretches and a strip of pale tummy skin shows underneath the t-shirt. 

"I told you we'd need beach stuff," is Dan's answer before he stands up and starts getting ready. 

And it turns out he's right. The sun is warm and the sea is calm and even the chill from the breeze doesn't stop Phil from standing at the edge of the water, water up to his ankles, staring back at Dan while he rubs sunscreen onto his face. 

"Thanks for being so pale and needing sunscreen, I'd totally forgotten about it and mum's is too weak for me" Dan said, walking towards Phil, kind of shouting over the sound of the little waves crashing onto the pebbles. Phil almost stretches out a hand for Dan to hold, but kicks back the instinct. 

They walk and shuffle deeper into the water until the water is up to their belly buttons, and Phil only stops when Dan grabs his wrist. 

"You're going too fast," Dan says, giggling. "It's bloody freezing, I need to take my time." 

And so Phil slows down, laughing down at the blueish greenish water, water almost up to his nipples, happy that Dan hasn't let go of his wrist. They walk this way until the water hits their shoulders, and then they both dive under, and Phil can't help but feel the safest when all of the outside world is quiet and he can feel Dan right beside him, amidst the blues and greys and greens of the ocean's water. 

Dan's hands travel from his wrist to his arm and to the back of his neck before they're both on the surface again, gasping for air. Phil looks into Dan's eyes but he looks anywhere else before taking Phil's hands in his, their fingers interlocked. He squeezes, and lets go, diving under the water again, already gone by the time the next wave hits. 

~

Soon enough they've both showered, and Phil is just zipping up his backpack when Dan's mum calls from downstairs, telling them to hurry as to not miss the train. 

"We better get going, she's never gonna stop yelling otherwise." Dan sighs, and waits for Phil at the door.

"Yeah, let's go." 

Dan's mum drops them off at the train station, which is fairly empty since they're taking the last train into London. The sky is already dark blue, and Phil regrets having packed up his jacket instead of wearing it. They wait for the train that is 19 minutes late, eat the sandwiches Dan's mum had packed, and drink water from the coffee machine. 

Phil's mind is spinning with the amount of things he's felt this weekend, and although his body isn't tired, he still feels as if he could sleep for years. He almost starts to dissociate, but then the loudspeaker announces the arrival of the train and Dan touches his hand to get his attention, and he's back, standing up, picking up his bag and throwing it on his left shoulder. 

They get into the last carriage and sit in the far back, next to the big window. Dan loads their bags onto the compartment above their heads and sits next to Phil, and then it's really quiet in the empty carriage where there are only two other people.

As the train starts moving, Phil feels himself almost melt into the seat, feeling warm and somewhat close to happy. He wishes Dan would touch his hand again, wishes he would lay his head on Phil's shoulder, but he doesn't. 

~

It's not until they're almost back in London that they speak again. 

"You know, I used to hate trains as a kid," Dan mumbles, almost too quiet for Phil to understand him. He leans in closer, and Phil can smell him, and it's so distinctly Dan that it makes Phil wonder when he'd had the time to get acquainted with it. 

"Why?"

"Don't know," Dan almost whispers, and Phil can't help but look at Dan's chapped lips. "Guess I just thought they were boring, I wanted them to be like roller-coasters or something, and then I was just disappointed that they weren't." 

"Do you still hate them now?" Phil asks, and they've leaned so close into each other that Phil can count each individual eyelash on Dan's right eye as he looks up at him. 

"No," he says, in a whisper, "No, I like them now." 

_You've been looking for a chance, and it's here._

Phil can feel Dan's breath on his face, can count the freckles on his cheeks, loves how the yellow tunnel light stains his skin. He knows that if he ever were to kiss Dan, this was the perfect moment, the perfect movie-scene. He thinks about leaning in, thinks about what his movements mean, wants to stay still like this forever, and – 

Dan's kissing him, and it's so sudden Phil barely closes his eyes, and forgets all bodily movements before overcorrecting, puts his hands on Dan's face, pulls him toward him, and touches the soft hair on the back of his neck and feels like he never needs to breathe as long as it's always like this. 

Dan's lips are so soft, and he kisses so tenderly that Phil feels himself slipping into a mindset that he'd forgotten even existed inside his head. Phil feels loved at the sheer amount of care that Dan kisses him with, even if he is kissing him fast and roughly after a few minutes.

Last stop: London King's Cross St. Pancras. We ask all passengers to exit the train here is what the loudspeakers announce. Phil's mind drifts back to the train, to Dan's eyes, to the yellow light. 

Dan gasps for air, lips so close they're still kind of touching Phil's, and says, with his hand still on the back of his neck: 

"Can we take a cab back to yours?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shit goes down; TW for dub-con and smut!

They're slamming the front door shut and Phil is kicking off his shoes while Dan unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt and pulls it over his head. Then he fumbles for Dan's belt; he doesn't know what force is driving him but he's moving fast and his face is flushed and it's kind of dark in the apartment and his keys are on the ground and so is his shirt now. Dan pushes him against the hallway wall and unbuttons his jeans and now both of them are mostly undressed and Phil is feeling much more vulnerable than he would usually allow himself to be. 

His worries slip his mind as Dan starts kissing his neck and he can feel his brain leaking out of his ears and a song is playing somewhere, but he can't make out the lyrics, and the melody surrounds him and it comes and goes, and he's dizzy as he feels Dan's breath against his skin. His right hand grabs Dan's still damp hair as his left travels up and down the chest pressed flush against his, feeling a bit better when he realizes Dan's skin is also dotted with goosebumps.

Dan smells like warm and his skin is soft against Phil's. His mind is traveling at a billion miles an hour, calculating just how bad of an idea this is whilst not having the strength to stop it. He waits for himself to break down but he doesn't, he remembers looking into Dan's eyes on the train, he remembers the feeling of his hand against the small of his back that afternoon, and he doesn't break down. 

Instead, he takes Dan's hand again, pulling him into his bedroom and pushing him onto the bed. Dan stares up at him and Phil can't make out the expression in his eyes, but then he's making grabby hands towards him and lies on his back as Phil comes closer, straddling him and clashing their lips together again. 

The debate going on in his mind is hard to bear, with one side telling him he’ll regret this tomorrow, and the other screaming about how Phil has never, ever, kissed someone like this before. He has never had a kiss where things felt like they were going to be okay, has never had a kiss that made him forget how to breathe, never had a kiss so soft and delicate that his heart began to disintegrate but somehow still remain whole. 

Dan sits up and now they're sitting right in front of each other, bulges in their underwear hard to ignore. They’re still kissing, with tangled legs and tangled hands. Phil runs his hands up and down Dan's thighs until he interrupts the kiss and looks deeply into his eyes. 

Dan reaches out and touches Phil's chest, running his fingers up and down and up and down again, their breath loud and faces red. Phil can't stop staring at Dan, thinking about how nothing in the world could be more beautiful than him, thinking about how it would be impossible for any mountain, lake or tree to compare to the boy sitting in front of him, still touching his neck and shoulder. 

And when Dan does look up again his expression has changed and he looks ethereal, looks like he's in wonderment, but also terrified, and Phil has never felt so close to someone in his entire life. He leans in to kiss Dan again, a bit more urgently this time, and he kisses back. 

Soon enough Phil's on top of Dan and both of them are panting as they grind onto each other, lust somewhat taking over, not allowing Phil to put as much thought into it as he usually would. His mind is plastered with Dan's face and body and heartbeat, and the heat between them is too big considering the apartment is still chilly in the early spring weather. 

"Can I take these off?" Dan asks, reaching for the elastic of Phil's boxers, and Phil nods and kisses him again, reaching for Dan's underwear at the same time. 

"Oh God, do that again, please," Dan whimpers as their erections rub together, breaths accelerating as any rational thought falters. Phil is not freaking out anymore, his mind is clear when he thinks about how good it feels to have Dan sweaty and moaning underneath him. 

And even so he feels vulnerable as he realizes he's about to be naked, kicking the underwear off his heels. He feels exposed and doesn't allow himself time to process it. Processing means freaking out, and Phil would very much like to remain in this moment, thank you very much. 

"Hm, ah, do you have any lube?" Dan asks beneath him with his hand on Phil's dick, and Phil barely hears the question because Dan runs a finger over his slit and it's hard to choke back a moan. 

"Hm, yeah I think so" Phil answers, thinking about how long it's been left untouched in the bathroom cabinet, still inside his toiletries bag from when he first moved into this place. 

He gets up and fetches it from the bathroom, carefully avoiding his own reflection in the mirror so as not to freak himself out. Phil's not feeling quite like himself and were he to look at his reflection he might be led to reconsider everything they're doing. And for the first time, Phil chooses not to over-analyze, choosing to go with his gut, which is very much telling him to go back to the bedroom and attend to the naked boy lying on his bed. 

And as he gets back to the bedroom he is met with that exact sight; Dan, still blushing and panting, hair curly and legs spread apart, looking at Phil like he's been waiting a lifetime for him to come back. 

Phil walks over to the bed and suddenly gets shy, doesn't know how to act, has forgotten the logistics of it, feels like a teenager seeing a naked boy for the first time. And in a way it sort of is like that, because no boy has ever been this important to him, no date or sexual partner ever felt like it had the significance that Dan did. 

He shuts out the thought and crawls onto the bed back on top of Dan, locking their lips and caressing his thighs and calves, slowly kissing down his neck and shoulders, kissing his chest rib after rib, lingering at the nipples, moving on to his tummy and hips as Dan lightly digs his nails into his back. 

Dan throws his arms around Phil, runs his hands down his head, lightly pressing his nails into the back of it, interlocking his fingers with Phil's short, buzzcut hair. He looks down at him and he's now dangerously close to Dan's dick, his breath kind of brushing over it when he changes from Dan's right thigh to his left, a trail of hickeys left behind. 

"Phil, I think I-" he cuts himself short, moaning as Phil runs his teeth over the hickey he just left on the inside of Dan's leg, "I-, you-, erm, d'you think maybe you'd wanna fuck me?"

The word fuck kind of stings against Phil's chest, but he ignores it and gets the lube bottle from where he'd left it on the nightstand, uncapping it and realizing how loud the sound is as he squeezes a bit onto his fingers. Dan watches and lets his head fall back while waiting, his breathing still very much audible as he brushes his fingers against the fresh, bright red marks around his crotch. 

"Can I?" Phil asks as his hand approaches Dan's hole, fingers nearly pressing up against it, slick and cold from the lube. 

"Yeah, yeah, d'you want me to lay on my stomach or on all fours or-?" Dan asks, and the expression in his eyes has changed again, and Phil feels uncomfortable because the warmth he had felt before is slipping away before his eyes. He attempts to cling to it. 

"No," he says, his voice low and quiet. "I think I'd rather you were looking at me."

Dan's eyes shift from Phil's hand to Phil's chest and then his eyes, and it doesn't escape Phil that his expression has changed again, that terrified look is back. Phil refuses to admit that the wonderment did not return with it. 

Phil warms up the lube on his fingers, ignores his brain when all of the "Bad Idea" sirens start ringing, and pushes a finger inside of Dan, up to the knuckle. The boy's face scrunches up and a few moments later relaxes again, and he nods at Phil to continue moving. 

He does, moving his finger in and out before adding in another one, and another one, and it takes every inch of his being to keep himself together and not spoil the moment by saying something stupid as he watches Dan fall apart beneath him, skin lit up with goosebumps, face flushed and red, sweat building up on his forehead. Phil almost tells him he looks beautiful, almost tells him he loves him, but he doesn't. 

"Phil, I'm ready, I'm ready," Dan whispers, avoiding Phil's eyes, and he feels that sting against his chest again, but ignores it as he holds Dan's legs up and presses his knees against his own chest. Dan's skin is warm and Phil feels every single one of his cells lighting on fire at the touch. 

He reaches over to the nightstand and pulls a little silver package out of the drawer. Phil rolls on the condom, lines himself up and slowly pushes in, feeling that rush he hadn't felt in so long, but something else as well. His heart is swelling up and his brain is telling him sex isn't love, but Phil's never been good at that particular distinction and his heart is screaming louder. 

He continues to push in until he bottoms out, breathing loudly as he does so. 

"You can move now," Dan says after a few seconds, his words catching around his tongue, and Phil kisses him as he starts pulling out and thrusting in again. He kisses Dan but the taste of his lips has changed, the way he moves his lips is different. Phil insists.

He stops kissing Dan and increases his pace, angling his thrusts expertly, slamming hard into Dan, his head nearly banging against the bedframe. The boy is a whimpering mess beneath him, little squeaks and moans leaving his mouth every now and again. Phil nearly tumbles over the edge when he hears his own name, and pulls Dan upwards towards himself wishing, hoping, praying that he could hear that again. 

As Phil's pace becomes irregular and he feels that familiar sensation in the pit of his stomach, Dan reaches for himself, tumbling over the edge shortly before Phil, spilling onto his own stomach and thighs, letting out a gasp and falling limp onto the mattress. Phil continues to thrust hard until he's coming as well, feeling Dan clench tightly around him, biting back on his tongue so as to not say Dan's name, pulling out as he becomes soft again. 

They don't say a word and Phil goes out to get a washcloth for them to clean up, but the feeling that is now building up at the base of his stomach is very different from the one from a minute before. It's bitter and sore, feels like a wound that he'd forgotten about that has now decided to make another appearance. 

He walks back to his room and hands the cloth over to Dan, who's now sitting at the edge of the bed, boxers back on, and Phil cannot for the life of him make out his expression. Dan cleans himself and says they should go to bed because it's late when it's just a little after midnight. 

"Wait, where are you going?" Phil asks, as Dan walks out of the room, chewing on his nails and fidgeting. 

"If it's ok with you, I think I'm gonna go back to, uh, sleeping on the couch." He says, not waiting for Phil's answer to disappear into the darkness of the corridor, leaving a mark just as dark on Phil's conscience. 

Phil turns to his side and tucks himself in, not feeling any warmer under the covers. His hair is sticking to his forehead and he feels disgusting, wishes they'd stopped when he'd seen the change of expression in Dan's eyes, feels like he wants to cry but is choking on the sadness instead, feels so miserable that he can't even be bothered to close his eyes. 

The blinds aren't closed and the annoying streetlight shines directly onto his face, but he doesn't have the energy to roll himself over, doesn't feel like it's even worth it for a good night's sleep. The tears won't leave his eyes, but he feels happiness draining out of him as if he were a leaking sink. 

He dreams of tornados and lightning, and when he wakes up, Dan is gone. 

_You go to the pharmacy to try and find bandages, but they only make them up to extra-large, and you're in need of gigantic-triple-sized-mega bandages for your leaking chest, and the lady at the register laughs when you ask her about it._

_You'd curse at yourself, but even that is gone now. That hatred that burned within you slipped away, along with any other thing you used to feel, any other thing that made you human. You do your work, take showers, sleep and watch TV, but you can't taste the sugar on your cornflakes, don't remember any of your dreams, and when you look in the mirror it's hard to know whose eyes you're staring into. You don't sit in the shower anymore, but the reasons for that seem so fucked up that you refuse to analyse it._

_The ugly grey of the carpet doesn't catch your attention._

~

Phil waters his plants and ticks off the days on the calendar, each week going by faster than the last, time disappearing like smoke when it's not given any meaning. He itches at his skin, touches the burnt red area on his back, scratches at the fading marks on his wrists, and tries not to think about anything anymore. 

His mum wants him to move back, wants him closer to home, says it makes more sense for him to be there, closer to the people who love him, rather than being by himself, and Phil kind of agrees. 

In the back of his mind all he can think of is "but what about the person I love" and his head screams back that he's not loved back. And it stings like applying alcohol to an open wound, and he wishes someone could kiss it better, could kiss his open sores, but the only person he wants is the same who's pouring the alcohol. 

It's summer now, and the leaves are really green on the tree outside Phil's window. Sunny days become more of a common occurrence, the streets get busier, and Phil leaves the house even less than he did before, prays for rain and thunder. Life seems easier when the outside matches the inside, and his ugly carpet remains in its ugly grey shade. 

_Your mind, too, remains in the ugly grey shade._

Phil barely talks to anyone, his mother being one of the few exceptions. She speaks softly over the phone or Skype, and listening to her speak makes Phil consider moving back home. Not to his parents' house, but to his home town. Close to mum, close to where he grew up, closer to things that used to make him happy many years ago. 

He starts planning, starts scheduling, starts to trace a future he is not excited for, but the planning takes up his mind and time, and it's all he's looking for. Planning is simple, it comes in the form of train tickets and timetables, comes in neat goodbyes and tearless leaving. As much as Phil felt alive here, leaving would be tearless because this city never loved him back. 

_You came here in search of something sacred, and you found it and hardly got to touch it before it slipped. You feel like a freak, like a hopeless romantic, like too much of a cynic, like a torn up piece of paper. You don't know what you feel like._

_Your mum says you're disappointed, the books you read for comfort say you're ill, the internet explains it as depressive disorder and your medication states the same thing. But all you feel is numb, feel as though all your edges have become even more crisp than before, your walls up higher._

_So you listen to Radiohead and try to disappear completely and never be found again. Try to become your own shadow, lick the edge of complete despair. But you taste nothing._

~

He feels a buzz in his pocket as he clicks the start button on his Playstation console, struggling to take his phone out of his pocket. When he does take it out and look at the screen, it takes a few moments to process the message. 

**From Charlie**   
_Hey Phil, I know we haven't talked in quite some time, but I'm currently-_

The way he types is weird, with proper capitalization and the commas. Seeing his name on the screen is weird and unsettling and thinking about what the rest of the message contains is also unsettling. 

So Phil sticks the phone back into his pocket and presses play on Fallout 4, but can't concentrate and feels his back pocket burning with the prospects forming inside his mind. What could Charlie possibly want? They hadn't talked in almost a year. Phil had left him out of the blue when Charlie had been so understanding of his struggles. He'd been sure he'd never want to see him again, but the message told differently. 

He pauses the video game again, and reaches into his back pocket. 

It's almost like getting a message from a ghost, from a character off a book he read a long time ago. And, granted, it's only been a year, but everything was so drastically different that Phil hovered a finger over the message in hesitation, not knowing what to expect, not even knowing how to feel about a message like this. 

So he swipes before he thinks about it anymore, and the message pops up, the blue bubble drilling itself into Phil's mind, reminding him of how he used to feel when a certain other person would text him like this. 

**From Charlie**   
_Hey Phil, I know we haven't talked in quite some time, but I'm currently in town and would really like to see you. No intentions, I promise, I'd just like to talk._

I'm here until Sunday, would you be available tomorrow?

Phil's mouth is dry as he hovers over the keyboard. It's 10am on Saturday already; the message must have just arrived late. He doesn't want to meet Charlie, doesn't want him to see how completely unwell he is, doesn't want to tell him how everything's gone to shit, doesn't wanna share the stuff he's been through in the last few months. But a tiny part of him kind of does. He wants to see if his face has changed, if he smells the same, if he finally cut his hair like Phil always told him to, wants to observe him like he did for long hours in the mornings where he'd wake up next to him. 

**To Charlie**  
_yeah, i'd like that. is 2pm ok? we could go out for coffee_

He clicks send and is surprised when no feeling of desperation arises, no sort of stomach churning, no "I've made a horrible mistake" bells ringing in his ears. Charlie texts him back not a minute later, and he feels a bit warmer to know he has the upper hand in this relationship. And sure, he shouldn't think about it like this, but it still makes for a nice change. 

They arrange to meet a few hours later at a Starbucks (although not the one where he ran into Dan), and Phil doesn't feel horrible about it, which is a good sign. He picks out an outfit and gets into the shower, pulling himself out of it before he decides to turn the water too hot again, or to sit on the floor. 

On the way there, he tries to keep his mind blank, tries to focus on the shadows cast on the pebblestone streets, tries to keep concentrated on the way his foot steps onto the pavement in his new sneakers, counts the corners that he turns to get there. It's sad to think it's almost summer again, and so little has changed since the last one. Phil is tired.

He turns the last corner and enters the coffee shop that is absolutely packed, and goes to stand in line when he realises Charlie sitting on the couch by the window, with two drinks on the small, round table in front of him. His gut twitches when he realizes he doesn't know Charlie's Starbucks order anymore. 

"Hi" he says, forcing the corners of his mouth into a smile, and Charlie stands up smiling brightly. He reaches towards Phil and pulls him into a hug, and it takes Phil a second before he can return it. Charlie still smells of the same cologne he used to, is still wearing the same jacket of a year ago, that is now scratching against Phil's neck as he is held tightly. 

Charlie pulls away and seems to be searching the air in front of him for the words he wants to say, stuttering out apologies and conversations starters that are clearly rehearsed. Phil doesn't know whether to be flattered or terrified that he could have such an impression on someone that they'd be nervous around him. He decides to be terrified. 

"I don't know if this is still your order but I, ah, I got you a Mocca Frapuccino, with caramel," Charlie stutters out, and Phil nods and smiles gently, very uncomfortable with how much power he seems to have over the situation. He's used to it being the other way around, the world always much darker around him than he'd like it to be. 

They sit in silence for a while after all attempts of empty conversations got denied when Phil just nods instead of responding, and sip on their drinks until there's nothing but ice left in the tall cups. 

"Charlie, why did you want to see me?" Phil finally asks, curiosity getting the better of him. He regrets it as he sees Charlie's expression drop. 

"I wanted to see how you were doing," he answers quietly, chewing on his straw, pushing his sandy hair behind his ear. Phil is reminded of how often he was the one tucking that hair, how it felt between his fingertips, how it smelled and what it looked like wet.

"But also, I heard you're moving back" Charlie continues, and Phil looks at the ground because he doesn't know what else to do. "And I wanted to see if there was still a part of you that, well, uh, I don't know." Charlie finished lamely, now also looking at the ground. 

"Look, I know you had a hard time," he continues, looking at Phil and lifting up his head, and Phil wants his touch to burn on his skin, but it doesn't. "But I'm still in love with you. Never stopped being in love with you even after all these months Phil, even after what you did to me." 

And now Phil is crying, he sobs and sobs but no tears leave his eyes. Instead he can't breathe and chokes into his hands and his face turns red and hot and he wants to run away but he has no strength. Better yet, he has no right to. 

Because what he did to Charlie is what Dan did to him but much, much worse because he'd loved Charlie and Charlie had loved him too. Worse because they were committed, worse because they lived together, worse because Phil refused the help Charlie offered, he turned down every offer, he dropped him like it never even mattered when it actually did. 

And now he's covering his eyes while Charlie strokes his back and the touch is warm and nice and familiar, and Phil doesn't know how to break someone's heart when you can't even find your own. But he's not in love with Charlie, he's in love with Dan, and his insides are all broken and dusty and cold, but he's not in love with Charlie. 

"Charlie, I-" he says, and his voice shakes and trembles and stumbles out of his lips as he wipes his dry eyes, "I'm not in love with you anymore. I'm sorry." 

And he sees Charlie's face falling in front of him, sees him look like he must be looking for the last year, sees the world around him turn to a darker shade of the grey-ish blue he's been living in lately. His hands are shaking and he wants to touch him, but he shouldn't and he doesn't. 

Phil had been falling apart for months now, but Charlie holds himself together in front of him. All he can think of is how weak he is, how much of a shit person he's been, how ridiculous it was of him to fall in love with Dan, how much he wishes he had never left. 

But he did, and everything is different, and his heart is in a different place and it's all wrenched and beaten up because he can't take care of anything, not even his own insides. He is hollow, empty and clueless, and in that moment, Phil wants to die. 

"There's someone else isn't there?" He says, his voice shaky, but stable. 

And Phil doesn't know how to answer because it's not like he's involved with Dan and it's not like they're committed, but his heart is attached and his mind can't think of anyone else and yes, "Yes there is someone else, but he doesn't love me back and we haven't even talked for the last two months, we only knew each other for a week before I fell in love with him and when I fucked him I thought he loved me too because that's how stupid I am." But he doesn't say that. 

And it's tragic and it hurts and Phil hadn't allowed it to hurt up to right now, in the middle of a goddamned Starbucks of all places, with his ex sat next to him and the plastic cup still in his hands. His entire body is trembling, his mind goes blank with hurt.

Phil nods, and Charlie leaves. 

_You never removed him from under your skin, and the scars may have formed, but there's dirt underneath them. You know now that you will never fully heal, and the realization is calming because at least it's true._

_You feel yourself start to disappear completely, and pray to never be found again._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for more explicit mentions of self-harm in this chapter! 
> 
> This is it, thank you so much for reading!

_"no amount of coffee_  
_no amount of crying_  
_no amount of whiskey_  
_no amount of wine_  
_no no no no no_  
_nothing else will do_  
_i've gotta have you"_

Phil gets back to his apartment and feels like Snow White lost in the woods, words and noises ringing in his ears but everything in front of him is black. He looks out the window and it's much darker than it seemed a few minutes ago, shadows falling into his living room, his skin feeling like it's peeling off of him. 

He takes off his clothes one by one, removing his shoes and his trousers and his t-shirt and his pants and his socks. He feels as if he's a snake shedding skin, except there's no new skin underneath. With every article of clothing Phil fades further into himself, collapsing, screaming six feet under his essence, breaking into such small pieces that he finally becomes dust. 

Walking towards the bathroom is a battle, time stretching out in weird ways. At one moment he was on the street and then he's alone at home and then it takes him hours to walk twenty feet to the bathroom, months to turn on the shower, years until it finally gets hot enough for him to walk under and dust himself off, sliding the edge, reaching for the metaphoric pills, jumping off the metaphoric ninth floor of a building. 

He thinks about cutting his wrists, thinks about drowning, thinks about poetry. 

_Sylvia Plath may have written the verses, but sticking your head in the oven isn't fast enough. Cut, cut, cut. Burn, burn, burn. Your skin aches to be touched, and every touch burns and itches and scratches but it's there._

_You hate yourself, you hate yourself, you hate yourself._

_Is he with someone else? Did he run away because you're such a fucking piece of shit? He doesn't want your body, he doesn't want you at all. Makes sense, doesn't it?_

_Fine, fine, fine. Cut, cut, cut._

Somehow, Phil does get out of the shower. 

He gets out and he puts on pants and he climbs into bed and sweats under his covers because he's too afraid to sleep without them. And he cries into his pillow, his tears salty when he presses his tongue against his damp arm, licking off the stream that just keeps on coming. 

But morning comes as well, and that same good old mediocrity of everyday life returns, and Phil considers moving home more and more with each passing day. Because it's hurtful staying here, hurtful to sleep on his bed or sit on his couch or walking past the movie theatre. It's hard because he still hates himself and he's still in love with Dan. 

And he's desperate. Because it should be lessening with time but it just seems to get more intense, and Phil cannot for the life of him stop thinking about Dan's hair after it went three days unwashed, can't forget that he takes his coffee with milk and two sugars, can't forget the exact shade of his boxers contrasting with the ugly grey carpet, can't forget how damp his own pillow was that night he dreamt of the thunderstorms and woke up to an empty apartment never to hear from him again. 

So Phil decides, as one does, that it would be best to run away. To forget about it, to abandon the sinking ship, leave it behind completely. It seems like he's the only one on it, after all. He hasn't heard from Dan in weeks, and it seems like it's time to move on. 

He goes back to taking his pills. He texts Charlie another apology. He calls his mum, he stops turning the shower water too hot, he stops tapping snooze on his phone every morning, he goes back to eating three times a day. And he's still sad, he still wishes he'd stop existing, still hopes for an easy escape, but everything is numb and whether it's the medicine or not, Phil goes on living. 

Happily? Well, that's a big ask. 

~

_Are you looking at him, or through him?_

_Because the way he makes you feel is unheard of, there is no song or book or movie or person to ever understand how you feel about him. You're not obsessed, and you're not infatuated, but you love love love with every single cell in your body confirming this mistake. Your body shivers at the thought of him, you tongue curls in on itself and your tummy feels empty and light and completely detached from you._

_You want him back but you're not brave enough, not courageous enough, not strong enough. And you fear going on with life knowing all the time that you didn't even try, but there's no other choice, and you confirm yourself a failure._

The days start getting shorter, and the wind starts to pick up, sweeping the reddened leaves off of the nearly bare trees, and Phil kicks at the puddles around his ankles. As the water gets to his socks he tingles at the feeling of his toes freezing, and walks a little faster to get inside. 

All his things are packed into boxes, so he sits down onto the mattress in the middle of the living room, opens his laptop and appreciates how little there's still left to do. His anxiety spikes at having to move again and thinking about it, but it's fine. Breathe breathe breathe. He's fine, he's going to be fine. 

The truck should arrive early the next morning and he checks and double checks the paperwork for leaving the apartment. He kicks at the carpet, blaming it for how shitty a year he'd had. 

(But it was pointless. The grey lived, in fact, within himself. It had done so for years now.)

He drinks water with his mouth around the tap because all of his glasses are packed, and lays down to sleep, breathing in the air coming through the open window, not even bothering to close it when the wind picks up and he starts shivering. Phil shields himself, and kind of enjoys the bite it has at his skin, how it lights up with goosebumps and feels a bit more alive than usual. 

In his dreams he drifts off into dark forests and deep lakes, and there's nothing that terrifies him more than realising he prefers those to his actual life. 

~

_Timing has never been a friend to the kind and desperate, has never held out a helping hand to those most in need of a good one. And maybe it was destiny, maybe it was good that you were not yet fully awake, maybe it all happened for a reason._

_But the timing. God, did it suck._

Three sharp knocks on the door get Phil out of his slumber and he jumps awake, shivering because the entire apartment is freezing, scrambles up to shut the window and thinks he misheard the knocking, thinks it was all just a dream and curses at his brain, like he's done a million times before. 

But then three sharp knocks on the door allow him to confirm that there's in fact someone there, and he clicks at his phone to look at the time. 4 AM. 

Phil has no friends in this city, he doesn't know many people who aren't related to his workplace, doesn't think he's intimate with anyone that they could knock on his door at four in the morning, and his heart starts racing thinking about what it could be. 

He walks towards the front door, his hands shaking slightly as he turns the lock and peeks behind it, and it takes him a moment but soon enough his stomach drops and his heart stops in his chest and he blinks several times to make sense out of the fact that the person standing at his front door at four in the morning is Dan. 

Dan, who ran away without saying goodbye, Dan, who he hadn't spoken to in almost three months. Dan who he was madly and desperately and incorrigibly and painfully and psychotically in love with, Dan who was standing outside his door in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans and Phil starts to wonder whether he's the only one feeling as cold as he is. 

And he just stands there, looks at the rug, pokes at his fingernails and bites them, stuffs his hands in his pockets and Phil wants to touch him, take his hand, feel the little veins that poke out at his wrists. He wants Dan to touch him back, to take his face in between his hands like he did so many months ago, press himself flush against Phil's body, skin on skin on skin. 

"Hi," Dan says quietly, and the confidence of his knocks do not show in his voice. He stands there waiting for Phil's answer, trying to look into his eyes but looking at the floor, playing with his hair and his pockets. And Phil is left shell-shocked and fidgeting because the single word that drips out of Dan's mouth is enough to make his heart beat faster, make his skin long for Dan's touch. Makes him want to press his face up against his torso and listen to his heartbeat and bloodstream. 

"Hi," Phil answers, and it's almost a whisper, and it's the hardest thing he's ever done and his skin feels even colder than before. Dan looks up like he's surprised, like he doesn't know what to do next and all Phil can think about is the curve of his lips and how chapped they look. 

A million thoughts seem to stream through Phil's head. Or rather, they stream through his entire body. He feels them vibrating against the walls of his torso, feels them looking for a way out, but what little he could make of them is drowned in the obliterating screams coming from his heart in loud thuds, struggling to find a rhythm, failing miserably at every breath Dan takes. 

And they just stand there, kind of taking in each other's presence and then Dan reaches out towards Phil and Phil pulls back, much more out of shock than anything else, but Dan sighs and looks at Phil again. This time Phil holds his gaze up, stares into the swirls of Dan's eyes, makes out the freckles on his face, feels like Dan stares into his brain and wants to let him. 

It seems like they do this for hours, seems like the night goes and day comes and goes again. And then finally Phil motions for Dan to come inside, and he does. 

They go into the lounge where Phil's mattress is spread out on the floor, boxes piling up at every corner, the only source of light being his laptop's charger light and the streetlight flooding in through the window. Phil thinks about how Dan looks beautiful in that semi light, the same light that shone on his face as he was spread out under Phil, eyes closed and hair curly, warm under his touch. 

_It hurts to think about, doesn't it? What could've been?_

Everything stands still, Phil's chest rising and falling feels like an earthquake, he can't think about anything other than Dan. 

Dan, spread out and beautiful on his sheets. Dan, sat on the Starbucks couch in the winter light. Dan, lighting up the screen on his phone. Phil feels like his brain's about to leak through his ears. 

"What's all this?" Dan asks quietly, carefully looking at Phil. 

"Well I'm, ah-" Phil stutters, hating himself for it, "I'm moving back home. I'm leaving."

And Phil doesn't know why it hurts so much to say aloud, why it feels like a breakup he doesn't want to happen when there isn't a relationship to start with. Why it feels like every cell in his body is throwing itself in Dan's direction while his brain insists he keeps his distance.

"You mean you're gonna be gone? You're not gonna live here anymore?" 

"Yeah." Phil answers. There's quiet, and he stares at Dan's chest, rising and falling at a strange pace, stuck between sighing and trembling slightly as he turns to look back up at Phil, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Well, this makes me feel all the more stupid for coming here then," he says, and there's an edge to his voice, a choked up cry, a shake. Phil nods slightly as an indication that he should go on. 

"But something snapped inside me today and I couldn't sleep because, well, y'know, when can I ever, but I had to come here and see you and explain myself because, well," And Dan gazes at the carpet, kicking at it with the tip of his black sneakers, "Because I can't stop thinking about you basically. Haven't been able to stop since we sat together on the train and yeah, I remember, of course I remember, Phil" Dan lets out a strangled chuckle, "I remember looking for you at the station and being terribly disappointed that I couldn't find you again.

"But you showed up, pale and tall that day in the cinema, and I could sense how nervous you were and I was dying to tell you the truth, to say anything, but I couldn't bring myself to and I felt horrible again. But you kept showing up, correcting my work behind my back and appearing in my dreams and I clung to you because I, yeah well, I had a crush on you and then I fell in love with you, I guess, 'cause I cannot get you out of my head and I've never ever felt like this before, I'm so so scared but I feel like I'm going crazy –

"Phil, I- I think I fell in love with you after that first night we talked on the phone, after the short text messages, after that day I knocked on your door and you took me in no questions asked and let me sleep and eat my heart out. Phil, I think I still am. In love with you, I mean.

"And, oh, God, you must think I've gone insane but I haven't slept since I walked away, and it doesn't matter how much coffee I drink, or how much I cry, or how many times I get drunk on whatever, I just – I can't get you out of my head, I had to come over, I had to tell you, nothing else will do I, – I want you Phil, I want you so much and I feel myself going crazy over it, and then I thought I should come here because what I did was unfair and maybe you feel the same way about me, and –" Dan stutters and backtracks so much while talking, his voice going from crackly to loud to whisper, Phil feels like every breath he takes is a new word and his legs are turning to jelly.

"And leaving you that morning was the strangest and worst decision I ever made but I was so freaked out because I loved you so much and I didn't know how you felt and we'd only just met and I felt so weird about everything and I gave myself to you entirely and the fact that it didn't freak me out was what freaked me out, y'know? 

"And now you're leaving but I had to tell you Phil, you had to know that I cannot stop thinking about you, that I was, I am – I love you. I feel so weird saying this out loud because it's only ever been in my head but yeah." 

Dan spits out the words like they're pouring out of him, like he was drowning in them. He says everything in one breath with no pauses and tears stain the brim of his eyes, that sparkle in them – the one that Phil loves so much – all the brighter when the yellow streetlight hits his face. 

And Phil, well. He's Phil. 

His mind races but there are no connections to his limbs or mouth and all the words he wants to say go unspoken as Dan stands there, clearly awaiting an answer, and Phil cannot for the life of him give one. His heart still pounds at an alarming rate within his ribcage and he wants to put Dan's hand on his chest, wants Dan to know all of what he's feeling without having to say anything because his words are cracked and dusty, no words are enough or maybe there are too many of them. 

How is he supposed to tell Dan that he is in love with him too? That every single song he listens to reminds him of Dan, that he missed his hands, that he wants to get rid of his skin and let Dan see him from the inside, that he searches for him in every crowd?

His skin is completely awake with goosebumps, his heart is tearing through his chest. But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything, he wants to touch Dan's face, brush his thumb against his eyelashes, bump his nose with his lips, anything, anything –

"I'll just –" Dan turns towards the door, "I'll just go then. I'm sorry for– I'm sorry." 

He wipes the tears that run down his face and walks out the door, closing it slowly behind him. Phil feels the air around him thin out, feels his head spinning, feels his chest bursting and something even bigger within him – his soul? – screaming, screaming, screaming. 

_When you were a child playing rock paper scissors you never won the best of three and shouted out "all or nothing!" once you knew you were sure to lose, a trend you didn't give up for most games in most of your life thereafter._

_The universe now offers you an "all or nothing" bigger than any before, and you feel like you're walking in rock-solid shoes and climbing fire ladders and flying down razor blade slides only to land on needle trampolines. But your heart is screaming "go! go! go!"._

Phil takes the stairs two at a time and trips at the front door, not even locking it behind him. The night is clear and quiet and nearly all of him wants to dive onto the concrete but a tiny part is urging him to keep moving forward, to keep breathing, to keep walking. 

He spots Dan a few blocks away and considers screaming his name, but hasn't found his voice yet. Everything feels grey and cold, his hands shiver, he keeps on walking, picking up his pace, miserable desperation pulling him in the direction that may not be easy, but seems to be right. 

And Dan must hear him because he turns around and his eyes are red and bloodshot and he seems confused and frightened, but Phil is in wonderment. Thump, thump, thump goes his heart and he's kind of walking and kind of running towards Dan now, who's taking steps backwards and once again Phil gets caught up in the way the light hits Dan's face, yellow, spacey, as if Dan were from another world. 

(Sometimes he thinks Dan might be from another world, a world where only the two of them exist, where he is enough and doesn't feel as heavy. A world that's just theirs, a world where Phil manages to exist in the now instead of in the past or future, – a world where Dan is his now, and past, and future.)

"Dan, I-" he pants out once he's close enough. "I have to say something." 

Only now does it hit him what he's doing, alarms going off in his head because he doesn't even know what he's doing, but he pushes against them, pushes them aside, doesn't even know how or why now but he does. Dan looks at him, with that same look on his face, tears edging onto his cheeks. 

"I'm not good with words, I- I'm no good at speaking, but-" He manages to blurt out, and his brain shuts up for the first time in years as he looks into Dan's eyes. His mind is clear, the blue stars inside him bright. He looks up, looks at the way Dan's eyes are dark and beautiful, takes a step towards him, almost reaches to touch him.

"But you've made me feel things I've never, ever felt before. I'm so in love with you. And I fell in love with you on the train, in the cinema, in the starbucks, over phone and over text, I fell in love with you. I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like, and I fled from the feeling for a long time because I was so freaked out by that.

"And these last few months have been horrible and I've come close to making horrible decisions but now you're standing here in front of me," Phil takes Dan's hand, feels the electricity, "and I can feel stuff again you know? I feel my lungs against my chest, I feel your hand in mine and nothing feels like it can't be handled anymore." 

Phil's mind wanders back to all the years he spent being unhappy, all the time he spent questioning whether his existence really mattered, drinking coffee out of unwashed mugs to warm up his insides in a weak attempt to feel something other than emptiness. He thinks about all the minutes of his life that he wasted being someone he wasn't, all the hours he denied who he really was because he was sure that it wasn't good enough. 

Phil thinks about how long he spent hating himself, how long he preached the motto of not needing anyone else. And in a way, he was right. You don't need another human being to make your life complete; but Phil had never felt better than when Dan had accepted and even appreciated the deepest cracks within him, used them as a vessel for comfort and love. 

He thinks about a billion things, thinks about how if the universe really is omnipotent, it probably exists in the space between him and Dan right now, probably exists in the little shocks Phil feels with the weight of Dan's hand in his, probably exists in the silence between them that seems to be stretching out forever but that isn't as desolating as it should be. 

It seems like years while Dan's hard stare slowly melts and Phil's brain gets louder and louder inside of him, everything inside him urging him to run but his feet won't leave the ground, his lungs stuck frozen mid-breath waiting for an answer, an indication of his horrible mistake or – says the tiny, tiny sprinkle of hope within him – of a sign of reciprocation. 

But Dan just looks at him, stares into his soul, wipes the tears that run down his cheeks pours truth out through his eyes and inches closer and closer very slowly until they're in each other's arms and Phil doesn't make an effort to keep the tears in, doesn't even notice them while he digs his head into the crack between Dan's head and his shoulder. 

Dan is so warm; he even smells like it.

His breath catches up and he's panting and he's tired and awake at the same time but everything around him swims in neon colors even though it's as grey as it ever was. It doesn't even matter if the universe is omnipotent, he thinks. He takes a step back, swipes his thumb across Dan's cheek, laces his fingers into the short hair on the back of his neck. 

Phil's brain and heart lace strings between them, his pulses matching his thought. It's like he's returning into his skin after being away for a long time. He pulls away to look at Dan's eyes, at his nose, his lips. 

And then he kisses Dan under the streetlight – yellow and otherworldly. 

~

_You take your meds when you wake up and before you go to sleep, and agree that there is nothing more beautiful than the brown hairs left on your pillow next to the warm indent on your mattress. Warmth is wherever Dan is, and that is okay by you._

_You don't make many promises, but he holds your hand even when it's clammy and makes sure you always catch the right bus. You look over his essays and explain that you think Latin is a dead language because they kept accidentally summoning demons when speaking it. He laughs and tells you demons are misunderstood parts of ourselves. You agree._

_When he starts thinking too much and gets confused you run your hands on his back and catch his tears until he gets up off the carpet in the hallway. He whispers thank you with his eyes and you hope he knows how much he means to you. He does._

_If there is such a thing as a soul, you feel like yours must be intertwined with his, feel like your ghost is his ghost and your home is his home and your loneliness is his loneliness. But you light candles and pop popcorn and pretend everything is fine until, eventually, it is. The stars inside you are blue, but they are also beautiful, is what he tells you. You try your hardest to believe him._

_Grey, you discover, is the mix of black and white, the middle ground between nothing and everything. After this discovery, the carpet, which remains grey and ugly, doesn't bother you as much anymore._


End file.
